


Dimensions

by feistymuffin



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cute Psychopaths, Dark Comedy, Degeneration of Mental Health, Graphic Violence, Happy Ending, M/M, Murder, No Split Personalities, Onset of Psychopathy, Psychopaths In Love, Sexual Content, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 07:18:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feistymuffin/pseuds/feistymuffin
Summary: Mark meets a pleasant yet insane man at the zoo who hates his own name, wears a clown nose and says he kills people--so, of course, it turns out Mark can't live without him. He never thought the phrase "he makes me crazy" would ever be a literal thing in his life, either, or that he wouldn't even mind when it happened.Or, the Mr. Right AU.





	Dimensions

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT first of all, this fic is based on/inspired by the move Mr. Right, and if you haven't watched it then YOU MUST. It's incredible and my fic probably won't do it justice, especially since I adjusted the plot and details a decent amount so it's not a direct replica. 
> 
> I watched the movie a couple weeks ago and since then I've basically been insane myself writing this thing. I've been craving to write some AntiDark and this honestly doesn't qualify 100% but you know what, not important. Enjoy!!
> 
> (btw the soundtrack for the movie is the best, listen to it forever and ever)

Mark doesn't even flinch when he hears his front door slam open. The sound is far away, past the haze clouding his mind, but voices are drawing nearer to him. He curls up into a ball under his protective layer and wills them away with his thoughts.

Another door opens, this one closer. "Oh, Christ, Mark," Ethan's voice sighs. Then, louder, "Tyler, he's in the closet under a heap of clothes, and by the sounds of things he's putting himself in a salt-induced coma."

"Back to our college days, eh?" comes Tyler's reply, nearby but not necessarily close.

"Leave me and my chips to die together in peace," Mark moans, huddling his limbs around the bag in his hands. He feels his layer of clothing lightening on top of him, and he whines pitifully. "No, I need my shell. It protects me from assholes." He turns his face into the carpet of his walk-in closet when Ethan pulls off the hooded sweater over his head and swats violently at his hands when they try to move him. "No! You're ruining my shell of comfort and healing! One of you troglodytes is getting anally violated by a coat hanger, I'm warning you."

"Mark, come on, it's fine," Tyler says soothingly next to Ethan. "I mean. It's... not actually fine. It still happened. But you'll be fine. Life moves on, right? Optimism, buddy."

"You want me to look on the bright side of being cheated on for five months," Mark says stonily into the thick pile of the carpet, staring blankly at a crumpled t-shirt in front of his face. "Wow. You guys are assholes, too."

"Uh, well you won't waste any more time with him now, right?" Ethan tries.

"Brilliant," Mark grunts, then rolls over, presenting them with the broad, defensive plane of his back. "Let me go back to salting myself to death, now, please." He shoves a huge handful of chips into his mouth, chewing loudly to block out their voices.

"Seriously, dude, you're making me want to cry just looking at you," Tyler says once his mouth is empty, sounding much less sympathetic. "Get up before I find a shovel and pry you from the floor by force."

"Eat my cock and choke to death on it," Mark rebukes viciously yet miserably, unmoving. 

Tyler sighs heavily. "Unbelievable," he mutters. He grabs Mark around one bicep, ignoring his wailing, and Ethan grabs the other and together they haul him to his feet. "I'll get him in the shower, you go start cooking something with vegetables in it."

"I resent this, I'm resenting what's happening right now," Mark grumbles, petulant, as Ethan disappears and Tyler lugs him to the bathroom. "So much resentment going on."

"Wow, you are such a diva," Tyler grunts, and basically throws him into the glass-enclosed shower. He supervises Mark while he washes the three-day grime off his body, then carts him to his room once he's wrapped a towel around his hips. He points at the bed, walking towards Mark's closet. "Sit."

Mark sits gloomily on the edge of his unmade nest of a bed, shoulders hunched. "I hate you. I hate everything. I hate you the most in this moment though."

"Woe is me," Tyler says dryly from inside his closet. He comes back out with a pair of comfy jeans and a graphic tee and throws them in Mark's face. 

Mark's hands fly up to catch the clothes and he scowls as he lowers them again. "Real cute." He gets to his feet, elbowing Tyler on his way past him, and gets a pair of clean underwear from his dresser. He's petty enough that it makes him feel better after he leans into Tyler's space and does it again directly into Tyler's ribs before he tugs his towel off and slips his boxer briefs on. 

"Do you feel better now that you've abused me a little?" Tyler muses. 

"I wouldn't relax quite yet," Mark warns him grumpily. Once he's dressed, he lets Tyler herd him to the kitchen where Ethan stands at the stove cooking. 

Tyler parks him in a stool at the island, giving him a searching look as no one speaks. The food sizzles in the background, and finally Tyler says, "How you holding up, buddy? Really."

Mark lifts a shoulder in a lame shrug. "I feel terrible. I probably look terrible." He pauses, and yeah, he feels fucking terrible. His chest aches and his stomach hurts and his face feels heavy from frowning and a little bit of crying. But underneath it all there's a rabid energy, something in him that wants to mess some shit up, make a bad decision and get angry at the world and ruin somebody else's day. Maybe ruin his own day, in a freeing way, on purpose and therefore less traumatizing because he caused it himself-- _he_ made an active choice that brought him to his knees, and not someone else's assholery. "And I feel crazy, very crazy because I want to do something terrible." He looks up at Tyler, oddly incensed as he continues, "Let's do something fucked up. Let's go punch a drug dealer in the face or antagonize little old ladies in a supermarket."

"The hell am I hearing right now," Tyler says, eyes wide open in mystification. "You are talking like a crazy person. Top shelf fucking crazy, actually. You need to cool your shit, Mark."

"I would not describe punching a drug dealer as top shelf anything," Ethan inputs wryly at the stove.

"No, let's go and--and climb telephone poles and cut the wires," Mark says heatedly. He's aware he doesn't actually want to climb a telephone pole and cut the wires, or punch anyone in the face--drug dealer or no--but Mark won't be held responsible for whatever felonies and misdemeanours he craves to commit post-breakup.

"Can y--Do you fucking hear the words being expelled from your face?" Tyler asks him incredulously. "You are above the acceptable threshold of Sunday Night Bridge at Alzheimery Grandma's crazy. You've reached like, Weird Guy Who Lives in the Bayou Alone and Shrinks Heads and Eats Gator Meat crazy. Don't be that level of crazy. I don't want the responsibility of taking you out back and putting you out of your misery."

"You don't know what I feel," Mark hisses at him morosely, slouching again. 

Ethan puts a plate of food in front of him, deliberately opening Mark's limp hand and placing a fork in it. "I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be feeling anarchistic, though. Eat your sorrows, dude. We'll do something fun today."

*

What Ethan thinks of as fun is, apparently, the zoo. Mark frowns at him as Tyler pulls him along through the gate. "We'll go and see all the cute animals," Ethan explains. So they do. They patrol Mark around the zoo to all the cute exhibits, everything fluffy and big-eyed and babyish, then to the cool ones, large predators and colourful fish and fascinating reptiles. They buy him a corn dog and some popcorn and cotton candy, and Mark will admit he feels a little improved by the time they hit the gift shop.

Tyler and Ethan ditch him to have a private conversation in the back of the gift shop, something Mark doesn't want to contemplate for the sake of his mental health. Boredly he peruses the wares, randomly picking up a simple black cat ear headband from a shelf and putting it on as he wanders. After a minute he's vaguely aware that he's meanderingly doing laps around three displays, and makes himself stop and read the packaging on two things before continuing. He earns a few weird stares from some teenagers by the register but he gives them his best cold, dead stare and eventually they stop looking at him. 

He's found a bench outside the gift shop to sit and wait for Ethan and Tyler, slumped back and fiddling with his phone. Mark has only been sitting for a few minutes when someone sits next to him.

"Cute ears," the guy says, and Mark looks up. The man is slim but not quite skinny with a broadly smiling mouth baring great teeth and dichromatic eyes, one ice blue and the other moss green. The top half of his hair is dyed an acidic shade of green and the sides are shorn close to his head. In his earlobes hang a pair of plugs, solid black with a polish to them. He's wearing a three-piece suit, heather grey and somehow casual despite being pretty formal for a zoo--but most confusingly, he's wearing a red foam clown nose.

"Nice nose," Mark replies. He quirks an eyebrow. "The circus in town, or you just passing through?"

The guy laughs. "I'm visitin' indefinitely," he says in an Irish accent. His smile goes a little crooked. "You wanna get out of here?"

Mark stares. "Uh, to where, exactly, guy I just met on a bench in a zoo? Directly to the freezer in your basement?" he wonders dryly. 

He's amused, though, still smiling. "No, yeah, that sounded pretty weird, right? Do you--like, on a date, do you wanna get out of here and go on a date," the guy explains simply, like that's less weird. "It'll be in public and everythin'. My basement is usually a third date scenario anyway. Gotta earn your way into the freezer."

Even though he really shouldn't encourage serial killer comedy with a complete stranger, Mark laughs. "Of course, how presumptuous of me. Aren't you going to introduce yourself before you ask me out? That's usually how these things work."

Strangely the man leans back, easy expression fading. "I... I don't like my name. I don't use it. Ever."

"What, are you like, anti-name or something?" Mark chuckles. "What am I supposed to call you?"

The guy perks. "Call me Anti," he suggests. "Anti-name. Anti."

"Anti," Mark repeats. "You want me to call you Anti. That's not a name, you know."

"It's the only thing remotely close to a name you're gettin'," Anti replies, grinning. "The one I preferred to my birth name is no good anymore, for a handful of shitty reasons. And the names I've been given by others don't really suit me. I like Anti, though."

"Okay," Mark says slowly. His crazy-o-meter is blipping erratically but he makes the decision to ignore it despite it being clear that this guy is nuts. _It's a bad decision just talking with him,_ Mark realizes, and is suddenly eager to jump on the opportunity with an intensity that scares him. "Anti it is, then. I'm Mark."

"Hey, no kiddin'. Great name, man." Anti pauses, chewing his lip casually. So casual, as if he's aware of its distractive power and is using it to draw attention away from everything that isn't his pink-lipped mouth. "You know, you kinda remind me of Donnie Darko," Anti says studiously, eyeing his face. "Jake Gyllenhaal isn't Asian or anythin', but you know what I mean? That look. You got that look."

"That look of malicious precognitive time travel and a psychosomatic murder rabbit?" Mark asks dryly. 

Anti laughs, a high and almost spastic cackle, but it's kind of appealing in its lack of boundary. "No, I meant you have a kind of darkness in you already." He looks curious but also like he's preparing for Mark to have some kind of nuclear meltdown. "Somethin' smudged underneath everythin'. I see it under your skin, waitin' to come out."

"Right," Mark says, oddly amused in the face of guano-tier psychopathy. He leans back, slinging an elbow over the back of the bench and pivoting a little towards Anti. "So, Anti. What brings you to a zoo today?"

"Mmm," Anti says in a little hum, "had to kill a guy. He was supposed to have business meetin's all mornin' but he blew 'em off and was fuckin' around the gorilla exhibit for the past couple hours. I got tired of waitin' for his ass and came in here finally to get 'im."

Mark lifts an eyebrow, but that appears to be all the answer he's getting. "Alright, fine, don't tell me," he says, half-smiling. 

"What's brought you here, then?" Anti wonders. He pulls his foot up to rest, ankle to knee, on his opposite leg. Even his shoes, expensive-looking loafers, are overly fancy for his setting. "The wonders of modern era animal kingdom captivity? The hunt for the perfect pair of kitty cat ears?"

"Not so much," Mark murmurs, absently touching the ears on his head as he removes them, and the bitterness he was slowly chasing away comes rushing back. But it's held at bay, strangely, as he looks at Anti. The ache doesn't hit all the way home anymore. "The guy I was with cheated on me for a long time. I found out a couple days ago. This is my friends' attempt at cheering me up."

Anti sucks in a breath through his teeth, nodding in sympathy. "Yeah, that'll do it, alright. Sorry to hear. The guy can't be a winner, though, if he gave you up." The flattery rolls off his tongue easily, as easily as the grin that spreads over his face at Mark's surprised almost-smile. "His loss is hopefully my gain."

"Oh yeah?" Mark scoffs, but he smiles for real this time. "So, what if I say yes to this random date? What are we going to do?"

"Well," Anti begins expansively, "we could do a romantic walk through the zoo. Or we can get the fuck outta dodge and work our way through the list of cliche things one does on a date. Food's always good, too, and I hear that movies are a thing."

Mark snorts, giving him an assessing glance. "Should we stay in a zoo where you recently killed a guy?"

"You make a fantastic point," Anti says brightly, standing in one smooth motion. "Let's go then, hey? Wouldn't want the date tainted with me killin' a bunch of people. Really not the kind of first impression I want to send."

"Just one dead person's fine though," Mark muses sarcastically, but he still stands. He eyes Anti's bright red nose. "What's with the clown nose?"

"It gives people somethin' to smile about before I kill 'em," Anti says idly, like he's recalling the temperature outside that day. He plucks the nose off his face and pockets it. "Also sort of acts like a callin' card. In this business you don't want too many things bumpin' around with your honest-to-God name on 'em, so bein' known as the guy who puts on a clown nose before he kills you is better than bein' known by name. Adds intrigue, minimizes risk." He sighs a little wistfully. "I hate the name Clown Nose though. My last name was cooler."

"What was your name before?" Mark asks, curious despite the blatancy of the lies Anti is telling him. 

"Septic Eye," Anti replies, grinning. "My codename for the CIA. Green hair, one green eye. My superiors thought they were hilarious. Could've been worse, though."

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, of course you were with the CIA. Well, why'd you leave?" Mark follows, a little helplessly, when Anti moves towards the exit gates nearby.

Anti shrugs. "Let's say a difference of opinion," he muses. "The first date cliche list doesn't include tragic backstory."

"Ah, very convenient how that works in your favour," Mark says, lips twitching.

"Isn't it?" Anti grins. They step out into the parking lot and Anti's already heading towards the far end, so Mark has no choice but to follow. 

"Is this the part where you chloroform me and duct tape me half-alive into a plastic bag and then dump me in the river?"

"Not nearly so frightenin'," Anti says. "I'll drive us to somewhere that we can eat, or walk, or somethin'. Your pick. And feel free to have your friends on speed dial, if that makes you more comfortable," he adds with a little smirk.

"Oh, right, my friends." Mark fumbles his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it. "I am a bad friend. Whoops." He sends a text to Tyler and Ethan each, but it takes several attempts to type out a message that doesn't sound like he's suddenly more than a little interested in the guy he just met, who is also possibly the craziest person in the city. "They'll _probably_ forgive me for worrying them and ditching them. They know I'm unstable right now. I'm sure it'll be fine."

"That's the spirit," Anti says with a grin.

*

They decide on a park nearby and Anti drives them to it, directed by Google Maps on Mark's phone. It's a short drive and Anti is apparently outstanding at parallel parking so before long they're strolling side by side under the overlapping boughs of the trees around them.

"This is pretty cliche," Mark notes, hands in his pockets as they walk. "A little boring, actually."

"Don't worry, we can get ice cream later to fuel some sexual tension and really set this thing on fire," Anti replies cheekily. 

"And what makes you think I'm attracted to you?" Mark wonders, straight-faced.

Anti doesn't buy it, though, and smirks. "You said yes to spendin' the day with me, didn't you? Or am I gettin' my signals mixed up and misinterpretin' in some way what it means to be alone with someone after heavy flirtin'?"

"Is that what you call heavy flirting?" Mark muses.

"Hey, I let you sit in my car, and the only other people to experience that luxury have been dead bodies in the trunk," Anti states primly, looking over at him with a charming grin. "That's worth a lot."

"I'm so flattered right now, you have no idea," Mark tells him, deadpan, and the Irishman laughs. The sound is high, a little spastic and a lot cute. "So I take it you don't date then, being a former CIA agent drifter that still kills people for fun?"

"I kill people for money," Anti corrects. "Or, well. I used to. The past couple years, since Tragic Backstory Detail Number Three, it's been less for money and more..." He gestures in the air searchingly. "Social justice murder, I guess? The bad guys try to hire me to snuff someone, or several someones, out. I bang the baddies instead. About half the time I come away with money, usually off of a dead man." He pauses, adding thoughtfully, "But to answer your actual question, no. I don't date. Haven't ever wanted to, haven't ever been in a good spot to start either. Never found anybody dark enough." The last part he seems to say more to himself than to Mark.

"So, what are you doing with me?" Mark wonders. "I'm not exactly killer nip or anything."

Anti shrugs carelessly, shoulders lifting and lowering in the perfectly tailored suit. His jacket hangs open, unbuttoned, and reveals the vest underneath as well as some of the crisp button-down beneath that. It's a good look on him, that casual fanciness. He looks a little dangerous as Mark watches him walk--a jungle cat poised, prowling. He's almost too graceful.

"No, you're not some walkin' drug to assassins," Anti says after a moment, and looks at him. "You're just somethin' I don't ever want to let go of."

"I must have made quite the impression in under an hour to be getting this kind of praise," Mark gets out, even though he wants to scream how insane that is, and also how he wants to know why he doesn't want to be without Anti either. "A bit unusual, y'know?"

Anti looks into his eyes and when he looks back Mark is briefly captivated by the two colours, each oddly intense in a separate way. "I think my autobiography could be titled "A Bit Unusual". Massive understatement, however."

"Smooth deflection, nine out of ten," Mark says wryly.

Anti sighs, looking away. "I see somethin' in you. I don't pretend to understand it... but you're special. Whether that's in general as a person or to me specifically, I don't know." He looks around at the trees rather than at Mark. "It's hard to picture never knowin' you, even thought we're still basically strangers." 

Mark nods and he lets it drop. He doubts, if asked to explain, that he could describe his feelings for the supposed hitman either.

They end up walking for hours, talking about non-tragic backstory things from their pasts. Family (on Mark's end only), friends, school, work, favourite pizza toppings, birthdays, vacations or trips. Anti has a lot of stories about places he's been, and even more about covert ops that he oversaw or participated in during his time in the CIA.

"Isn't this like, top secret shit?" Mark asks him at a pause in conversation, after Anti recalls his role in a military coup to take over a corrupt government in Turkey. With each passing second Mark's forgetting to be skeptical about what he's hearing, whatever drivel Anti is feeding him to avoid telling him about his real life--or worse yet, what Anti believes to be real but isn't. _This is you making a bad decision on purpose_ , he reminds himself, and ignores his common sense. Mark doesn't stop to analyze why the bad decision, Anti, is exactly where his instincts are driving him.

" _Super_ top secret," Anti agrees pleasantly. "Highest level of clearance available on some jobs. The CIA would kill me for sure if they knew I was singin' to you like a canary. I'm already on their shit list, though, so it's alright."

"You're--You know you're in America," Mark says, slowly, like he somehow might not be aware. 

Anti laughs boisterously at that. "Oh, I know," he says to Mark's confused frown. "The US isn't the only country eager to get their hands on me. Ironically it's the strongest of them but also the easiest place to hide. A lot goes on here. Lots of static."

"That makes so much sense," Mark says sardonically. "Thanks for clearing that up."

"Don't be surly, Darko," Anti chuckles. "Over half my appeal is mysteriousness. Can't explain everythin' today or I won't get a second date."

"Oh, second date, eh?" Mark croons, feeling a peculiar thrill of giddiness at the nickname. "Will I be upgraded to dinner and a movie?"

"If that's what you want," Anti says with a little smile. He leans into Mark's side as they walk, their arms pressing together. In the midst of dimming daylight Mark feels the presence of the man next to him like an embrace.

Both of them are quiet as they follow the path in its lazy curve. Mark's eyes drift from Anti to the sky above, dappling intermittently through the canopy of leaves. He's looking for a sign of stars poking through the light pollution when Anti speaks up in a mild tone, "So this guy, the one who cheated. Want me to smoke 'im?"

Mark laughs, nudging his shoulder lightly into Anti's. "Not necessary, but the offer is appreciated, tough guy." He laughs again, softer. "It's like you're intentionally forgetting that murder is like, a bad thing."

"Forget? No," Anti muses. "Neglect to care about, yes. Murder's bad, yeah, but I do it to prevent targeted killin' over petty, stupid shit. I was--Christ, I was dustin' folks like the fuckin' maid because Mrs. Rich doesn't want Mr. Rich to sell his obscenely wealthy company, or Spouse A slept with Hookers A through G and Spouse B needs Spouse A to have an unfortunate accident at the business end of my fuckin' pistol. It's all just--" Anti sighs with frustration, glancing over at Mark and then away with a sour, dull expression. "Bein' a weapon was fun and all, until it wasn't. Now I prefer to kill the people who think that it's acceptable to have someone killed for the simple purpose of makin' themselves feel better or eradicatin' a problem in the easiest way."

It's contradictory, and crazy, and totally nuts, and _really fucking insane_ , and if Anti is telling the truth and not hallucinating-things crazy, then he's psychopathic-murder-people crazy. So, decent chance that Mark is literally talking to a serial killer. Swallowing the little squeeze of fear that clenches his throat--because it is looking less and less like Anti is lying or confused about his life with every word he speaks--Mark nods, unable to form words. 

Anti seems to notice his sudden reticence and sighs again, sadly this time. "I'm sorry. I didn't--I don't want to scare you. I shouldn't have said anythin'."

"No," Mark says, his voice cracking. He clears his throat and bumps his shoulder into Anti's again to get him to look up, says again, "No. It's okay. Well, it's not _okay_ , if you actually are--But it's alright, I guess, that we're talking about it."

When Anti grins at him it's crooked and handsome, and he bumps Mark back. "Just so we're clear, though, I won't be slayin' you at all. Not in the conventional sense, anyway." His grin turns sly.

"Well, aren't we confident." Mark tries to hold in his smile, but not very hard.

"I like to think of it as enthusiastic optimism," Anti replies. He takes a few quick steps ahead and steps in front of Mark, stopping him in his tracks. "Let's do somethin' fun."

Mark lifts an eyebrow. "I mean this as kindly as possible, but I'm wary of your definition of fun."

Anti chuckles and doesn't reply as he grabs Mark's hand, pulling him into a run towards his car, off the path and cutting across the grass. Mark goes willingly, actively keeping up with Anti without having to be pulled, and wonders at the sense of correctness that flows in him as he sprints with Anti at his side, their hands linked like vices.

*

"How fast can you run?" Anti asks him as he pulls into a parking spot.

Mark looks out the window and around the nearly empty mall parking lot, poorly lit by overhead lamps every twenty yards or so. The darkness doesn't bother him--never has--but he's seen the news lately. Crime in the city is up, some kind of swell of gang wars and drug cartel shuffling, grabs for power and territory. Or so the police speculate. In any case, they've warned people over the news not to take risks past sunset, travel in pairs or bigger, and if you don't have to go out, don't. The absence of activity around him reminds him of what the city and its alleys harbour, all of the criminals, killers, gang members, drug dealers, and typical no-good people. 

Then again, he just consensually spent over nine hours hanging out with a self-proclaimed ex-CIA career hitman that supposedly kills to prevent further contract killing. Mark really has no room to judge on the basis of personal safety choices when it comes to the company he keeps.

"Depends what's chasing me," he finally says.

Anti shuts the car off, casting them into shadow. His teeth flash through the gloom when he turns to Mark and grins. "Out of shape mall cops?"

"I think I've got that covered," Mark says dryly. He opens his door and gets out when Anti does, looking at Anti across the roof of the car. "Why exactly will we be eluding mall cops?"

"Do you wanna see somethin' cool?" Anti asks. The dark hides his facial expression but it can't cover the hesitation in his voice.

Mark bites his lip as he considers. He may be a hitman, but Anti hasn't given Mark any reason to fear for his life around him, despite everything the Irishman has told him. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Anti slaps a hand onto the hood of the car with a whoop of joy and bounces excitedly, then bolts off towards the mall. 

"Hey!" Mark calls, but only gets Anti's retreating laughter in reply. He runs after him, following the dark blur that zips away speedily across the pavement. 

When he catches up Anti has avoided the doors completely, circled around two corners of the building and is waiting patiently along the back of the mall by a ladder attached to the wall, standing under a flickering lamp. Mark walks the rest of the way, saying, "You said nothing about running after you, you know. That's false advertising. I'm pretty sure I could have you arrested for that, and like, at least spanked. Maybe tased."

Anti waits until Mark stops in front of him before smirking and murmuring flirtatiously, "Handcuffs too, baby?"

"Yeah," Mark snorts, covering his mouth with a hand to hide his blush. "Yeah, handcuffs too. Not that it would contain you, I think."

Anti leans back into the ladder, curving his body in a way that invites the eye to roam. Mark obliges easily. When he finally meets Anti's gaze again the hitman is grinning. "A guy might get ideas, Darko," he says, low.

Mark looks away. "So what are we doing, anyway?"

"Breakin' into the mall," Anti says, an edge of delight to his tone. He turns and starts climbing the ladder at a brisk pace. 

Mark sighs, looking up at his ass in the form-fitting pants without remorse as he asks, "And who's going to bail me out of jail when you get me arrested for "something cool"? Which, still not understanding the purpose of breaking into a closed mall for this. Not one iota of comprehension."

"It's not illegal to climb onto a roof," Anti calls back simply, and reaches the top of the ladder, disappearing from sight. 

"Trespassing to climb a roof is definitely illegal, however!" Mark shouts up at the sky. Anti doesn't reply and regardless of his protest he's grabbing a rung on the ladder and hoisting himself to the next step, all the way up until he's climbing over the ledge and onto the flat roof. He straightens and sees Anti standing a stone's throw away, peering down through a skylight overlooking the food court. Mark comes up on his left, elbows him gently. "We're not James Bonding our way in through a skylight, are we?"

Anti chuckles. "Nah." He looks around. "This is the best place I've found in the city to do this. Maybe because there's so many electronics in one spot? Dunno. Anyway." He takes Mark by the arm and pulls him a few feet away from the skylight. "No cool tricks near glass. Safety first."

"I'm pretty sure doing anything near glass is a safety risk," Mark muses. "And what do electronics have to do with this?"

"Relax, Darko," Anti soothes, stepping slowly into his space, giving him plenty of time to move away. He doesn't. "Since I was a kid," the hitman continues slowly, "since... I was old enough to remember, essentially, I've sensed things." Anti smooths a hand up Mark's chest, right over his sternum and murmurs, "In everythin' around you, everythin' that exists, there's a kind of... static. Like radio fuzz or snow on a TV. Every person's got a sort of frequency. Here." Anti's fingers press over the centre of Mark's chest, a hand's breadth below his collarbone. Mark inhales slowly, feels the brush of fingertips through measly cotton, and his breath isn't quite steady. "Each one's different and pretty much distinguishable from any other person. Some people stand out more than others."

Mark swallows and keeps his hands at his sides. "Is that what you meant when you said you saw something in me?"

"Yes, and no." Anti's other hand comes up to take one of Mark's, bringing it up to Anti's chest and over his sternum. "That weird energy, the static that everyone has. I've never met anyone else who can get at it or even see it. But you're not like anyone else." His eyes dart up to meet Mark's. "You're somethin' entirely unique."

"Supernatural flattery, this is a new one for me," Mark says, aiming for light but missing by at least three miles. He feels Anti's body under his hand like a burn with no heat. "Are you trying to imply that I can also see the static, or whatever? Because, I'm being perfectly honest here, I haven't done a single spooky thing in my life."

"I don't think you see the static, or have it," Anti murmurs pensively. "No, whatever you've got, it's... definitely not static." His eyes study Mark without moving, intently peering. "It's like... I look at you and it's like my eyes slip out of focus. The lines around you are staggered like two frames of video overlapped."

"I really don't know what you're talking about now," Mark says, quiet in the hush of the night.

Anti smiles, ducks his head a little. "Wanna see somethin'?" he asks softly.

Mark should really say no. "Sure."

"D'you trust me?" Anti asks more seriously, like the answer is important at this early stage of knowing each other.

Mark really, really shouldn't. "Yeah, I do."

"Don't freak out," Anti says. Before Mark can ask what he's supposed to not freak out about Anti's turning away and sprinting away across the roof. As Mark watches him he has to bring a hand to his face to slap himself, because what he's seeing just... isn't possible. Anti runs and he runs fast, but not fast enough for his body to flicker out of existence and then just... back again, like a video skipping a few milliseconds. It should really not be something he's seeing, or even something that someone should be able to do. Mark slaps himself again as Anti runs back and does it three more times, his image stuttering before he slows to a stop a couple feet away.

"Are you okay?" Anti asks quietly when he doesn't speak.

Mark barks out an incredulous laugh. "Oh, I'm fine. Yeah, totally fine. A dude I just met today who says he kills people can like, fucking teleport. I'm splendid."

Anti moves to him, pressing a hand to his chest again and Mark sighs unevenly. His hand slides up to cover Anti's, slightly roughened by hair at his pale wrist. "I'm sorry. I didn't wanna freak you out. Please, I just--I haven't... I've never tried explainin' any of this to someone before. I've never really shown anyone."

Breathing deep, Mark says, "So--so the static. It helps you... do that? Whatever that is?"

"Yeah, and a couple other things," Anti replies, his voice oddly gentle. "I can show you, if you want? If you still wanna break into the mall? We won't get caught but, y'know, I get it. Pretty illegal."

"Hmm. You swear we won't get caught?" Mark asks dubiously.

Anti grins, fingers curling into Mark's shirt. "I swear on my blackened soul that we won't get caught." He bends and brushes a feather-light kiss on the back of Mark's hand holding his. "Promise, Darko."

Mark smiles a little. "What's with the nickname? I've got a first name, you know."

"A good one, too," Anti says. "But I guess I like the idea of me bein' the only one to call you somethin'. Even if it's stupid."

"That is stupid," Mark agrees. He cups Anti's jaw with one hand, tilting his head. "Super fucking cute, but also stupid." Gently he turns Anti's face and presses his lips to his bearded cheek, lingering for a moment before pulling away. "And so corny."

"All yours, too," Anti says, meeting Mark's eyes when he pauses, face hovering inches from Anti's. "Aren't you just the luckiest?" His eyes flit to Mark's mouth and back up again. "Maybe that's me, actually."

"I recall something about a crime to be committed," Mark murmurs. He lets his hand do what he's wanted to do since he left the zoo, and grabs Anti firmly by the hip, holds him close. "Breaking and entering."

"Oh, there's a lot I want to happen right now, and all of it has to do with enterin'," Anti smirks, his bottom lip half-bitten between his teeth. "Wanna help me with that?"

"You're encouraging me to fuck you on a mall roof at--" Mark lifts his hand behind Anti's back to check his watch, "--one-thirty in the morning?"

"Well," Anti simpers, chuckling, "I didn't say relocation was off the table, did I?" He grins, kisses Mark lightly on the corner of his mouth and whispers, "I'm flexible, after all."

Mark huffs out a little laugh and spreads his hands along Anti's back, smoothing up his ribs. "That I don't doubt for a second. C'mon, you've got all night to seduce me. Show me something freaky, Anti."

The Irishman gives him a filthily speaking glance and Mark laughs again. "I can do freaky," he says breezily, and after a brief pressure of his nails into Mark's chest he pulls away. He gestures for Mark to follow and leads the way across the roof to the other end of the mall. He abruptly stops in the middle of walking, lifting a hand and saying, "Oh, right here, Darks. Perfect. I should be able to get us both in."

"Go ahead and explain that sentence whenever you're ready," Mark says, quirking his brow.

"The static-jumpin', the skippin', whatever it is that I do," Anti says, "I can piggyback sometimes. I noticed once when a guy jumped me from behind durin' a skirmish in Helsinki and I startled into a skip but he came along with me. Now I can do it on purpose, but... never really had anyone I wanted to actually take for a skip, y'know?"

Mark looks around, though he doesn't know what he expects to see. Perhaps a rock-climbing rig that's set up for them to spelunk into the building below, or maybe a magical fairy with a wand, ready to zap them with sparkly dust and children's wishes. And he's got nothing against him, but Anti implying that a whatever-the-fuck-teleport-thing piggyback is going to happen? Mark's not sure he's with that. Why bring it up at all? It's not like getting a space-time teleporting piggyback has anything to do with getting into a building from the roof with no access points.

Mark whirls then, and looks at Anti's face with dawning clarity, and horror. "You're going to piggyback me and skip us through the roof. Into the mall. Through the--the roof. _Anti_." 

He lifts his hands palms out with a grin a metre wide. "You said you trust me, right? D'you trust me enough to let me magic flash dance you through a solid barrier to do somethin' illegal for the sake of a good time?"

"I wonder if you ever hear the words you say, truly, or if you just go through life in a deaf, dumb, blind stupor of crazy," Mark wonders. He wants to dunk his head in a tub of water just to make sure he hasn't been dreaming all this insanity up. 

"Oh, well, I wanna keep you on your toes, baby," Anti says with a snicker. He holds out his hand, his manic grin disappearing and his face settling into a soft, hopeful little smile with big eyes, arched eyebrows and dimpled cheeks--a look that casts a hook and snags Mark's heart like a master angler. "Dance with me, Dark?"

"I don't think I'll ever hear you say my actual name," Mark muses, and takes his hand. 

Anti pulls him in and laughs, twirling himself underneath Mark's arm before meeting again, taking his other hand and guiding them into a leisurely tango. "The engineer can dance," Anti murmurs happily when he notices Mark keeping up with his steps, although Anti is clearly the more graceful of the two. "I thought you said at the park that they keep you in your office at work, away from all the excitement."

"Believe it or not," Mark says in a conspiratorial whisper, his temple pressed to Anti's, "I have like, a real life outside of work. I do stuff with people. I go home and everything. Fucking bananas, right?"

"Blasphemy," Anti agrees. He turns them in a quick spin and as he does Mark feels a shuddery, breathless instant of falling flash through him. In that brief second there's complete and utter blindness, crushing down on him before it's all gone again, barely a ghost of a memory it happened so fast.

Mark blinks repeatedly, staggering as if someone pushed him. "Jesus, what--" He pauses, feeling a distinct lack of cool night air on his skin, and looks at Anti, still in his arms. "What--" Mark tries again foggily, but as he does he sees his surroundings, and he gapes.

They're inside what appears to be an electronics store, if the multitude of TVs covering one shadowed wall and the cacophony of tiny lights peeping at them from all directions are any indication. Mark turns too quickly and almost tumbles to the floor, except for Anti's hands on him keeping him upright.

"How we doin', Darko?" Anti asks.

"Uh," Mark gets out, searching his eyes, seeking grounding of some sort. The longer he looks the better he feels, so Mark holds eye contact through the darkness as he says, "You--you fucking time-warped me without warning. _Fuck._ Warning. Yeah, Anti--fuck, a heads up would have been good."

"Sorry, I thought it might be easier if I didn't say anythin'. What did you feel?" Anti wonders, curious and worried. "I usually just... I don't know, I get like a tingle. I don't feel anythin' else, and then I'm just ahead of where I was before."

"Everything was just gone," Mark murmurs, sighing hard in an attempt to calm down. "Like I was in some abyss with no air, no light. Nothing."

"I'll warn you later when we leave," Anti says, his smile smaller than usual. "You should try holdin' your breath or somethin'. Maybe it'll help." He steps away, letting Mark go where they had been touching, and beelines to the TVs. Anti raises his hand and places his palm onto the nearest screen, then looks over his shoulder at Mark. "Ready for more freaky?"

"I'm probably as ready as I'll ever be, you freaky freak," Mark replies, and sucks in a breath. "Show me."

There's a pause where no one speaks and nothing happens, then every TV on the wall flares to life, each one with a full screen of static. The sound is catastrophic and Mark claps his hands over his ears with a shout of dismay before it dissipates into a hum. Anti's grin, toothy and cheshire-like, flickers in the static's intermittent light. As Mark watches, concentric patterns start to ripple through the static, stretching and pulling one way, narrowing or sharpening in another. It's mesmerizing to watch, kaleidoscopically hypnotizing. 

The screens blink out for a micro-instant, and then it's... video, almost. Or what video would look like if it had a layer of static overtop of it. Each screen is a different video, different things happening but all seemingly plucked out of everyday scenarios. From what Mark can pick out in the surprisingly detailed static video, several people seem to reoccur in multiple screens. Then one face jumps out at him, on its own and staring dully out of the TV. Someone looking in a mirror. Anti's face, looking in a mirror.

"These are memories," Mark whispers. He looks to Anti for confirmation, and the man pulls his hand away from the TV it rests on. The TVs shut off briskly, like all their plugs were pulled, and they're cascaded into darkness. The sudden lack of light blinds Mark. "Anti, those were memories. _Your_ memories."

Anti's voice is right in front of him in the murk when he replies quietly, "Yes."

There's a lot Mark could say. He could comment on the whole static thing, being able to control electronics, or about the mental transfer thing. He could bring up the time-skipping thing again, or he could even mention the hitman thing and ask why Anti won't just tell him the truth about his life. There are a lot of things about this man that Mark can only categorize with a question mark. Like how unbearably attracted Mark is to him.

"Somehow," Mark murmurs, "I think this stuff probably ranks above your tragic backstory on the list of weird shit to hold onto until Date Number Two."

Anti chuckles and then a hand is touching his arm, long fingers cupping his elbow. "I've never wanted to tell anyone this much about me before. Until now, it's been... faces. Just faces. Nobody mattered enough for me to want to let 'em in. Nothin' matters like you matter."

Mark lifts his hand to grab Anti's, thread their fingers together. Slowly Mark is starting to see his outline, now that his eyes are beginning to adjust. "I must be crazy," Mark mumbles with a tiny sigh, then smiles. "I have to be crazy, to agree with you on this."

The fingers around Mark's tighten as Anti laughs, a jerky exclamation of shocked joy. He moves closer to Mark and their bodies align like puzzle pieces. Mark lets his hand curve around Anti's waist under his suit jacket. "Let's go back up. I wanna look at stars with you while we talk."

"You're really trying your hardest to hit every date cliche, aren't you?" Mark muses. He starts to dance again, a waltz, leading this time as Anti shifts their hands and follows his steps.

"I don't think I'll ever stop wantin' to impress you," Anti murmurs, his lips at Mark's ear. He presses a kiss to where Mark's jaw meets his neck, whispers into his skin, "Hold your breath." Once Mark does Anti makes no physical move to show he's triggering the static time-skip, but when Mark blinks the abyssal darkness out of his eyes he feels a breeze on his skin, hears the faint ambience of the city, and he knows that it's already done.

They dance without pause and neither of them speak. After a few lazy, swaying circles Anti lets out a soft sigh and moulds himself to Mark, fingers clinging into his t-shirt. Mark slides his hand gently up and down Anti's back and makes sure to just barely caress over the swell of his ass on each southward stroke.

"When I said I wouldn't slay you," Anti says in a drowsy, hushed mumble, "I was under the impression that I would also be safe from bein' slain."

"I never agreed to that," Mark replies. He's incredibly pleased to know that the effect he has on Anti is so strong. From what the man has shown over the day he's not a particularly sharing person, especially the important things (see: tragic backstory, family relations), and one can't exactly run a casually carefree lifestyle if what one supposedly does for a living is kill people. Mark still isn't sure if Anti is being honest or not, because when he talks about being a hitman he seems so... clued in, confident in his knowledge, like all of these scenarios he's been in have actually happened. But he could also be completely delusional and have made everything up, but just thought he experienced it and had obtained the knowledge from extensive research or some other similar but much more reasonable situation. He cares a lot about Mark, though--apparently more with every passing moment, if Mark's reading the situation correctly. And Mark cares a lot about him, for someone he can trust with his well-being but can't trust him when he says he's a hitman (mostly because, who the hell is a hitman and just tells you on the first date, which is supposedly _right after he killed a guy?_ ). But everything else going on makes their mutual attachment pretty insane. 

Slowly he lowers Anti into a dip, relishing in the sound he makes when Mark tugs him back up and right along Mark's front. For a breathless second Mark stares into Anti's mismatched eyes, his face barely lit by the parking lot lamps below them, and Anti stares back. Inevitably Mark's eyes slide down his face--his pink lips are parted and Mark can see the cheerful white of his teeth just beyond them. He glances up at Anti's eyes again as he slides his hand up Anti's back, under his jacket and over his shirt, along the bend of his spine.

"You," Anti murmurs, eyes boring into Mark with lust intense enough to rival a prostitute, "need to kiss me."

"Yeah, I do," Mark says, and leans in. The first touch of his mouth is gentle, a precursor caress to the deeper one that follows. He cradles Anti's head in his hands and feels the near-silent groan that travels up Anti's throat in his fingertips, urging him on. His lips coax Anti's to open for him, and then Mark's licking into his wet mouth like a drowning man, dying for the addictive taste of him.

"Messin' with my stargazin' plans," Anti murmurs against his moist lips when they pause for breath. "I was gonna woo you with my knowledge on the constellations, all the big astronomical terms."

"Oh, talk space to me, you sexy devil," Mark moans, grinning when Anti ducks his head into Mark's neck and cackles. He rubs his hands over Anti's hips, thumbs teasing along the bottom of his ribs. "How'd you know I like space and stuff?"

"I didn't," Anti replies. "I just... always associated static with space, in a way. It got me curious as a kid, made me wonder if there's static in a vacuum, or different kinds of static on places besides Earth, and I soaked up space facts like a sponge." He lifts his head and smiles. "You like space?"

"Since I was little," Mark murmurs, and brushes his nose against Anti's. "Space has always been my thing, that thing that I know I'll always love unconditionally. So, it would have been funny watching you try to impress me with space facts."

"Kick a guy while he's down," Anti grumbles, but he's smiling. He pulls Mark in for another kiss, this one deeper and slower, more deliberate in the ways it makes Mark fray at the seams. Anti's long fingers glide down his body and lift his shirt to play along the small of his back, and Mark exhales hard into his mouth before clamping a firm hand at his jaw and driving the kiss somewhere filthy and hot.

Anti's harsh gasp, and soft moan, when Mark drags their hips together shoots down his spine and right to his dick. "Noises like that really are going to get you ravished on a mall rooftop at two a.m.," Mark warns him, bending to nip his way down Anti's jugular.

"Search me for a fuck to give," Anti replies, tipping his head to give Mark all the room in the world. He makes a pitiful noise when Mark ends a long lick with a bite to where his pulse beats heavy under his skin. 

Mark slips the buttons on Anti's vest and pushes both it and his jacket off the Irishman's shoulders and onto the ground behind him. With those out of Mark's way his fingers deftly work the buttons on his white formal shirt, and then he's got his bare hands on Anti's equally bare chest.

"You're sure this is what you want?" Anti asks, and Mark pauses at the serious tone of it. When Mark pulls back to look at him, his face is concerned. "With the guy who fucked you over, and meetin' me today... I want this to really be what you want."

Right. The entire reason Mark is here is because he's basically rebelliously rebounding from his shithead ex's cheating assholery with the horribly, dangerously dumb decision of getting involved with a fucking crazy person he met that day. Why wouldn't he want to have sex? Just add on the shitty decisions, why the hell not.

_But that's not what's keeping me here anymore_ , Mark thinks as his eyes take in Anti's face. It was what made him follow and trust Anti in the beginning but it's not why he's still here, indulging himself past the point where his rebelliousness would have run out. He's admitted it out loud; he's basically crazy for Anti, and crazy for wanting him. And probably a little extra crazy, because the guy convinced him easily to commit a crime.

However, being nuts over Anti doesn't mean he isn't still fucked up over his ex. "Yeah," Mark says after a moment, straightening Anti's shirt and redoing the buttons. "It is what I want, but probably for as many bad reasons as good ones." He pauses to watch Anti's expression, but he just quirks an eyebrow. "Sorry. For undressing you and then redressing you without doing anything fun in between."

Anti huffs out a laugh, easing out of Mark's hands to bend and pick up his vest and jacket. "I forgive you, if I can stay the night," Anti replies with a grin.

Mark cups a hand around his neck and tugs him close for a chaste kiss that quickly develops a distinct lack of chastity. "I can't promise I'll remain saintly all night," Mark murmurs to his lips. It's more to permit himself endless small touching than to actually give himself an excuse to initiate sex.

"You're already doin' a piss poor job of it," Anti groans when Mark dips his head to suck on his neck, travelling down and moving his shirt aside. "Oh my fuckin' Lord, Dark--ah, _shit_." He writhes a little when Mark bites the bruise he just left above Anti's collarbone. 

"Call me that again," Mark murmurs, rubbing his thumbs over Anti's nipples through his shirt. Anti arches under his hands, obediently moans _Dark_ under his breath like he's already unravelling. Mark feels a surge of possessiveness riddled with greed, and something else that sits deep in his chest and stays there, makes room for itself. It's heavy with... purpose, and it sounds better with every repetition in his head. 

Anti looks at him, lips curling. His arms slink around Mark's neck and he holds himself tightly to Mark's body. "You like it, don't'cha? Me callin' you Dark." He smirks when Mark stiffens, hands clenching on Anti's waist. His hands play with Mark's hair, idly tugging at strands and petting. "Yeah, baby. That's your name, isn't it? You're my Dark."

"At this rate I'm going to need a chastity belt to keep myself away from you," Mark grunts, humming out a groan when Anti pulls his hair and kisses up his neck.

"Mmm, that would just get in my way," Anti murmurs mischievously. He eases back, hands becoming caressing again as they card through Mark's shaggy hair. "And if it wasn't in bad taste considerin' your emotional state, and we weren't on a mall roof, I'd be workin' my arse off to get you naked and fucked. But we've got stargazin' on the agenda. Can't miss that."

Mark chuckles, and he can't help but lean in and kiss him again. He keeps it gentle even when Anti tries to get a little rowdy, and soothes his enthusiastic touching with feather-light kisses up his jaw. Slowly Anti eases until he's soft and tender under Mark's hands. He pulls Anti to a kneel, then onto his butt and Mark lies on his back on the rooftop. He pillows his head with one arm and lifts the other invitingly, which Anti quickly tucks himself under. Anti shifts around until he's comfortable and rolls his head on Mark's chest to face the sky.

The rough material of the roof's gravel cuts into Mark's back, but as he looks down at Anti's face when he starts rambling about the constellations, he doesn't care in the slightest. He rubs his hand up and down Anti's side while they watch the stars, hiding his smile in Anti's hair.

*

"Whoa," is the first thing out of Tyler's mouth when Mark nearly crashes through the front door with Anti at almost 5 a.m. His best friend and roommate is at the island on a barstool, looking like microwaved leftover hell.

"Hey, Ty," Mark says, the grin falling off his face as he quickly straightens. "Uh. Hi. Hey, Tyler. Hey." Anti giggles a little, leaning back against the front door as he closes it. 

"Mark, what the fuck?" Tyler snaps. "Where were you? You--you ditch us at the zoo with one text and don't respond for the rest of the day and then have the nerve to come home all nonchalant at fucking dawn. I will--I'm _this_ close to bitchslapping you, you asshole. Ethan, he's home!" he yells over his shoulder, to his and Ethan's open bedroom door. 

"It's really not that bad--" Mark begins hesitantly.

Mark's other roommate and best friend stumbles out of the room in a maladjusted t-shirt and boxers. Sleepy-eyed, Ethan glares at Mark. "Dude. You brought your rebound stranger home? Sleazy."

Mark gives him a cold stare. "Oh, nice. Real nice."

"If the shoe fits, man," Ethan shrugs. "And you don't have room to argue. You scared us, seriously. Answer your damn phone when we call you."

"It was on silent," Mark mutters. "I was having fun. I forgot."

Tyler throws a banana from the fruit basket at him. It boinks off his forehead and lands on the floor with a bounce. "You're grounded."

"Aw, c'mon, Dad, the big dance is tonight!" Mark whines theatrically in a high-pitched squeak. Tyler cracks a smile, and behind him Ethan is fighting not to do the same. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."

With a huge sigh Tyler gets up and gives Mark a hard noogie before letting him go and saying, "I guess I forgive you. Who's this, anyway?" He waves to Anti, who's standing at the door patiently.

"Oh, uh, Anti," Mark replies, taking Anti's hand and pulling him past his roommates, towards his room. "My friends, Tyler and Ethan. Guys, this is Anti. Okay, bye!" He hurries to his door and once inside his bedroom, he shuts it quickly behind them before he can hear Ethan or Tyler's responses.

Anti smirks at him when he looks up. "Hidin' me from the friends. Classic sign of possessive behaviour. Nobody could take me from you, y'know. They'd die tryin'. 'Cause, well... I'd probably kill 'em, but, semantics."

Jealousy flares under Mark's ribs, hot and angry. "I'd kill them first," he mutters, and he's not sure if he's entirely joking.

Sliding gracefully out of his suit jacket, Anti smiles and murmurs, "So what's your opinion on pillow talk?"

*

When Mark wakes up the sun is in full display outside, casting its yellow light through his windows and blinding him where he lay tangled in bed. He blearily rolls to squint at his clock on the bedside table, which informs him it's past noon.

"Anti," he mumbles, throwing his arm out to slap the Irishman. His hand meets the empty bed next to him and Mark lifts his head. Anti's not there, but there's a note on his pillow.

Written in a scratchy scrawl, the note reads, _Had to go to work, my darkling. How about dinner tonight? Call me._ Underneath Anti signed his name in a careless scribble and a phone number, along with a doodle of the constellation Orion and a small Saturn. Mark spends an inordinate amount of time pressing the note to his face.

Tyler and Ethan aren't up yet, so he starts making breakfast. The smell smokes them out of their room as Mark is plating up blueberry pancakes. 

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Tyler grunts, plopping into a barstool. Mark puts a plate in front of him and hands him a fork, doing the same for Ethan beside him. "You have got to be fucking kidding me. _Mark_. This dude cannot be making you breakfast-cooking-level happy."

Mark makes a noncommittal noise and puts the syrup in front of them. 

"You never cook for us anymore," Ethan grumbles as he cuts his pancakes, eyes accusing as they look at Mark. "Said we were all getting fat and that you had to stop indulging our horrible appetites."

"I stand by my assessment, we were all getting dad bods," Mark asserts firmly. "But... I don't know. Today's a good day, I guess."

Ethan groans loudly. "Seriously, Mark? You're attaching to the dude you met yesterday at the zoo? How hard do you need this rebound to be for you to be satisfied?"

Mark grins, plucking an apple from the fruit basket on the island and biting into it. As he chews he says, "I think I love him. Is that fucked up?"

Ethan and Tyler give him identical looks of horrified sternness, utensils frozen mid-cut. "Yes," they both say.

"Mark," Tyler begins, "you should pump the brakes a little here, man. What do you really know about the guy?"

_Certainly nothing that people typically tend to share with prospective partners_ , Mark muses to himself. He doesn't know Anti's first or last name. His profession is assumedly being a professional hitman, but Mark is still pretty skeptical about that. His origin is pretty easy to pin down, since his accent is clearly Irish. He's around Mark's age, give or take a couple years. Anti's told him a lot about his life despite all that, actually. The authenticity of it all is what Mark is unsure about.

"I know what you're trying to say," Mark sighs, sliding the last pancake from the pan and onto a plate already stacked high with them. "It's different with him. If possible, he's even more attached than me, so it's not like he's going to screw me over."

"Shit still happens," Ethan says, a little morose. "Just, be careful, Mark."

Mark nods, chews his lip and decides against telling them about his date that night. _They'd just blow it out of proportion_ , he tells himself, and pushes another pancake onto Ethan's emptying plate.

*

The restaurant Anti takes him to is nice, much nicer than he was expecting, and Mark sees the necessity for his suit and tie as Anti smiles at the maitre d' and takes Mark's hand when they're led to a table.

"Fancy," Mark comments once they've been seated.

Anti gives him a soft look before studiously placing his napkin over his lap. "You deserve it," is all he says.

"So," Mark muses after a small silence, sipping at his water. Anti looks up from fiddling idly with his fork. "Second date. I think I've earned my way into hearing the tragic backstory."

Anti chuckles, eyeing Mark across the table. "Yeah, alright." He sighs, unbuttoning his suit jacket--this time a charcoal grey, with a powder blue shirt and black and grey striped tie--and leaning back in his chair, pulling his shirt tight across his chest. Mark allows himself to be distracted for a few gorgeous seconds before lifting his eyes to Anti's, unwavering. Anti ducks his head with a smile and sits forward. 

"When I was fourteen," Anti says, meeting his eyes, "my entire family died. Parents, both sisters, both brothers, and even an uncle, aunt, and two cousins. We were all real close. We had gone on a big trip to Moscow together and one day we went wandering in a marketplace after sightseeing a museum. In broad daylight we got caught in an explosion that was covered up as a gas leak, but was actually a bomb--two MI-6 agents, an FBI agent and a CIA agent in a lethal shoot-out against an arms dealer with access to a lot of C-4. I was up the street about fifty yards, buyin' a Team Russia lanyard for a friend back home in Ireland. Everyone else was together, barely twenty yards from the explosion. Half the block was destroyed or close to it. Over fifty casualties. I was the only one that made it, out of every I came there with. Barely even scratched."

Mark must look gutted, because Anti gives him a tiny smile and lifts his shoulder in a minute shrug as if to say, _It happens_. He drapes his fingers over Mark's, rubbing the back of his hand briefly before pulling away.

"At that point, the CIA was involved and had me in their custody but they weren't releasin' me after I answered all their questions. So I skipped out of my holdin' cell and escaped when I was left alone. I was only fourteen," Anti says again, almost a laugh. "They caught me again and this time they recruited me. I was exactly what they look for--orphans with no attachments who can be remoulded with ease. They remoulded me, and trained me. I grew up and got good, because of natural talent or because of the static I don't know. Either way, I quickly became their most important asset. Two years ago I said I wanted out, and I didn't listen to any of their "logic" to stay and continue killin' people. The CIA decided that wasn't good enough and I was blacklisted. 

"My partner didn't side with me. He was one of the first to try and kill me, actually. Fuckin' brutal thing to do to your partner, y'know? He collapsed a bridge on me. Can you believe that? A bridge. That's just rude. And to add insult to it, he ended up gettin' killed anyway." Anti sighs, slouching a little. "Ah, anyway. Then I was in the hospital for quite a while. Brain damage, couple of ruptured organs, the works. After that, I kind of... The static was a lot easier to read, and use. Killin' became easier. I know all the ethical and moral reasons why it's bad, I agree that it's bad, but... it doesn't affect me when I kill someone. I decided to keep puttin' my skills to use and kill people that tried to use me as a weapon of directed pettiness, instead of killin' because I was simply paid to."

Mark blinks, mouth agape. He tries to talk a few times, but nothing comes out. _What do I say? Are condolences even worth it, so much later in life?_ "I'm sorry about your family," Mark says softly. He chews his lip nervously as he forces himself to consider the rest of what was said. Anti's life is being painted out, detail by detail, and Mark is running out of plausible deniability that Anti is either completely insane or a licensed ex-government serial killer. It's one or the other, and both are equally terrifying. Neither option really offers any kind of happy ending that involves keeping Anti in his life.

"You're lookin' like I should have stopped after the orphan thing," Anti says, voice muted.

"I'm trying to rationalize staying with a man who is consistently telling me that he's a practiced killing machine," Mark admits weakly. He exhales, staring down at the table. "Please just tell me that you're crazy."

Anti laughs bitterly. "Well, if I told you that I'd still be right. The bridge, whatever brain damage I got... I'm not the same man I was before. I'm... I'm not less, but... I'm skewed. My personality shifted towards the negative end of the line by ten points. I'm some kinda crazy, yeah--but I've still killed people." He pauses and Mark glances up to see his morose expression. "I killed someone yesterday, and today. It's what I do."

Mark nods, clenching his hands on the tabletop. "Okay." He flicks his eyes up again, then down to his fingernails. He feels stupid for needing the clarification, but he has to ask. "Am I--Are you..."

Even though Mark doesn't finish, Anti seems to understand what he's asking. "No! No, no, I would never hurt you," Anti says vehemently. He reaches for Mark's hand and Mark lets him take it, biting his lip when the touch doesn't scare him or set him on edge. It only soothes his raging anxiety. "Okay, listen to me, Dark, _listen to me_. There is nothin' that could make me ever want to hurt you. Nothin'. No one could make me. I'd die first. D'you hear me?"

Mark nods again, more numbly, blinking rapidly as he tries to hold himself together. _Anti really kills people. He really fucking kills people. Oh my god. I'm being courted by a hitman. His romance is killer,_ Mark thinks half-hysterically, and laughs shortly, quickly stifling the manic sound.

"Should I take you home?" Anti murmurs, thumb rubbing along Mark's knuckles. 

"No," Mark mumbles, forcing himself to breathe deeply. He looks at Anti's face and squeezes his hand deliberately. Anti's brow is crinkled in worry, dented with distress. His mouth is turned down at the corners, but his eyes are hopeful as Mark continues, "No, it's... it's okay. I mean, you've been telling me this whole time what you do. I ought to be used to the idea by now." 

It's a poor stab at humour, but Anti still chuckles. "I'm sorry," Anti says, sobering, quiet and woeful. "I wish I could change what I am. You deserve more than what I can give you."

Mark shakes his head slowly. "No. I want you as you are."

Anti's smile is goofy with elation. He dips his head to kiss Mark's fingers. "Hey, wanna get outta here?"

"We just got here," Mark laughs.

Anti stands, pulling Mark to his feet and heading for the entrance. "That's alright. These square fucks won't miss us. We'll find somethin' else to do, yeah?" It's started raining while they were inside, and as they come into the waiting area Anti slips out of his jacket and puts it over Mark's head. Mark starts to protest but Anti leans forward and pecks his parted mouth to shut him up, then tugs him out into the downpour. 

They get to the car, Anti's hair damp with droplets of water but for the most part still pristine. Mark quickly hops into the passenger side while Anti slides in behind the wheel.

"Where are we going?" Mark queries, trying his best to shake the water off of Anti's jacket.

"You'll see, Dark," Anti replies, and holds his hand while he drives. Despite it being a stick Anti still drives easily with one hand occupied.

_This hand has killed someone_ , Mark notes internally, turning Anti's hand over in his as he inspects it, and he feels no fear. _It's probably killed countless someones. People with lives, family, spouses, siblings, children, pets._ Anti is pale everywhere and even though his hands get the most sun and should be an exception, they're not. His hand is roughened by hair starting from beneath his sleeve and continuing halfway up the back of it, some dusted on the backs of his fingers. The fingers themselves are long, capable--sure and precise when they toggle the clutch or grip the steering wheel. Rounded, clean fingernails. Lightly calloused palm and fingers. _This hand has killed someone_ , Mark tells himself again, and the words have as little impact on him as the first time he thought it.

"I think I'm crazy," Mark murmurs, then laughs to himself a little.

"Huh? Why d'you think that?" Anti asks, frowning.

"I just--" He laughs again. "I don't care that you kill people. There's got to be something wrong with me. I genuinely don't care that you've literally taken dozens of lives. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me."

When Anti smiles it's sad. "Right now, I wish I hadn't met you," he says. "You didn't need this kind of influence on your life."

Mark squeezes his hand hard enough to get Anti to glance at him. "The only influence I've needed in my life has been yours," Mark says firmly. "I don't care what you come from. You found me. Anti, you _found_ me. That's what I needed." He holds their linked hands to his chest, over his heart. "This is what I need."

Anti's fingers tighten on his, eyes resolutely fixed on the road. "Dark, hell, I'm tryin' to operate a fuckin' vehicle. Don't confess your feelin's when I can't jump on you like a pogo stick."

"Next time I tell you how I feel, I'll make sure we're stationary," Mark chuckles, and kisses the back of Anti's hand.

Fifteen minutes later Anti parks in front of Mark's house, to Mark's confusion. He leads the way inside, using Anti's jacket as cover again when the man refuses to accept his clothing back. As Mark shuts the door behind them Anti shakes the water from his hair.

"So, why are we back at my place?" Mark asks him, smiling indulgently when Anti crowds him back against the door. His wet hair is hanging in his face in limp strands, partially obscuring his eyes and giving his face a slightly sinister intensity. "Got some ulterior motives? Do I get the VIP treatment, upgrade to a visit to your freezer?"

Anti grins, and the complete image is horrifying. Mark aches with need just looking at him. His palms run up Mark's chest under his jacket. "You trust me, Darks?"

"I'm offended that you even have to ask," Mark replies. He lets Anti take off his jacket, slip the knot on his tie and pull it from around his neck, then watches as Anti removes his own tie. Everything is tossed carelessly towards the couch, then Anti is on him again.

Cool fingers trace Mark's chest, trailing down to his belt. "I wanna push you," Anti whispers. "Push you until you find what's hidin' in you. Your darkness."

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Mark murmurs, and his abs tighten when Anti digs his nails into his stomach. "Alright, alright. I'm open to your suggestions."

Anti pops open his shirt buttons, one at a time. "When I see it in you, I feel like it's... raw. Exposed like a wire. Volatile. I can get you there."

Mark pulls his bottom lip between his teeth when Anti efficiently undoes his belt. "You're going to get a different outcome if this is the way you plan on getting me there." Anti quirks an eyebrow. "Just saying. I'm a total slut. I put out on the second date with very little encouragement."

"Okay," Anti muses, but he doesn't button Mark up again. "Then, let's try another way." Anti has him stand at one end of the kitchen in front of the wall while he goes to the opposite end and plucks a knife from the butcher block.

"Whoa, whoa," Mark says at once, anxiety spiking. "What the hell is with the knife?" His eyes widen when Anti grabs another one, tests its weight, tosses it up in a whirl of sharpness and neatly snags it out of the air again. "Okay, I trust you significantly less with knives. Not to be rude and doubt your knife skills. But knives. Knives are sharp. Cutty slashy knives." He's babbling, he knows he's babbling, but he can't stop. Mark watches, mesmerized with anxiousness as Anti swirls the knife around his hand, fingers dextrously avoiding and navigating the blade's path. "Dude. I'm going to pee myself on principle right away. Why are we playing with knives?"

Anti shrugs, flipping the knife up into the air again, followed by the second one. With careless ease he juggles them, catching them by the blade as often as he does by the handle. "Just playin', Dark. That's all it is. We're just playin', baby." He pauses one knife but continues to toy with the other one-handed and gives Mark a searching, serious look. "The static helps me when I'm in need. What helps you?"

"I--" Mark begins to say, but shrieks as Anti rears his hand back and throws the knife at him. Things almost seem to slow down as Mark watches the knife soar towards him, and he sees the lines of everything in his vision unfocus, the world's image slipping apart into separate colours around the edges. The knife is the most distorted, blue and red and grey all edging the object, strangely preceding it, showing where it will inevitably go. Before it connects with anything, though, Anti is gone and back again, blipping into existence right in front of Mark to catch the aggressively approaching knife before it hits him. Mark blinks and he flinches reflexively, and between one second and the next everything is normal again.

"Jesus _fuck_!" Mark exclaims, staggering back into the wall right behind him. "Wh--Why the fuck--Shit," Mark wheezes. Anti looks at him curiously, both knives held harmlessly in his hand. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

"Why are you upset? You saw it," Anti observes, pleased. "You did, you saw it. Here, let's try again--"

"No!" Mark shouts, and he leans against the wall for support as he settles his racing heart. "Fuck, Anti, you--you can't just throw a fucking _knife_ at me, and--and expect that to somehow just be _okay_." 

Anti frowns. "I didn't intend to hit you. I was goin' to get it before it could hit you, and I did."

Mark swallows and gets out, "You n--You need to leave, Anti. I just--God." He wipes a hand over his eyes.

All at once Anti seems to realize the situation he's put himself in, and hastily puts the knives down on the counter and comes to Mark. "No, nonono, Jesus--Dark, I'm sorry, I wouldn't--You know I wouldn't--"

"Yeah, I believed that, until you started _throwing knives at me_ ," Mark hisses at him, and Anti's miserable expression deepens. 

"But, you felt it, right?" Anti asks, like he'll find some solace in the answer. "You felt it, your whatever-it-is."

Mark sighs, thinks back to the smear of red-grey-blue, like 3-D but ten times as intense. "Yes, I felt it." He looks at Anti's pleading face. "God, yeah, I felt it. But Anti, that--you can't just--"

Just like that Anti's disappeared, popping back in again at the other end of the kitchen, with both knives in his hands. "Catch," he says, and hurls one of them at him.

He doesn't have time to get pissed off or scared, because this time the knife doesn't slow down nearly as much. Its lines stretch and discolour again, blade over handle as it spins on its way towards him. Mark sees the way it'll swing, sees its arc as it nears him, so he just... reaches out, and snags it cleanly out of the air, as easily as he would a baseball. 

Anti's grin, when Mark looks back at him with wide-eyed shock, is boisterously shit-eating. "Yeah, Darko, _that's_ what I'm talkin' about!" He laughs in a high cackle, twirls his solitary knife around his fingers and then back into his palm, and he throws that too. 

Mark snatches it before it lodges in his throat, startled into a grin as Anti nods and growls playfully, "Yeah, baby, catch that fuckin' knife. I'm a little lonely over here, though. Toss 'em back, would'ja?"

He should be pissed. He should be outraged that someone thought it would be cool to throw sharp things at him, especially a someone as special to him as Anti. But it's not. All over again, the fear and the anxiety are gone in the face of what Anti has shown him with the simple sincerity of knowing what's necessary to accomplish something, and taking that route. His faith in Mark, in what Mark can do, is atmospheric.

Before he throws it back Mark licks a path up the side of the knife, revelling delightedly in the way Anti's eyes fixate on him. He tosses the knife up and watches with mild awe, the way it distorts into something so naturally unnatural, the way the colours harmonize separately, as readable as a book. Nimbly he grabs the knife from the air and spins it in his palm, then grips it tightly and throws it back at Anti, quickly followed by its companion.

Smooth as butter Anti catches the first knife and moves with the motion, spinning his body and catching the second mid-spin. He twirls once more and comes to a stop, his face bright and open, with a hollered, "Fuck yeah, Dark!"

Mark grins and sags into the counter beside him. "Shit," he laughs. "Shit. That's so fucking metal."

Anti replaces the knives into the butcher block and comes up to him, wary of his welcome despite their elation. "I'm sorry for throwin' knives, and not warnin' you, and pushin' you, and scarin' you. Are you mad?"

"No," Mark says, and he means it. He coaxes Anti closer, curls a hand around his neck. "I'm not mad. Probably more than my share of fucking nuts, so, unless you meant that kind of mad..."

"Shut up," Anti blurts before clamping both hands at Mark's jaw and dragging him into a fiery kiss. His nails dig into Mark's face but Mark couldn't care less, and decides to retaliate by turning them and slamming Anti into the wall with his body. By the throaty groan he lets out, though, Mark thinks it was hardly a punishment.

Mark quickly loses control over the kiss but he's more than happy to let Anti lead, devouring Mark's mouth like it's his personal ambrosia. His hands divest Mark of his open shirt, sending it fluttering to the floor and baring Mark from the waist up, and he pulls back briefly to look down at Mark's body.

"You haven't even gotten to the best part yet," Mark informs him when he continues to stare, lips quirked.

Anti hauls him into another kiss by a firm grip on Mark's neck. It's a long minute before he pauses to pant into Mark's mouth, "Oh, god, please tell me the best part is that you're gonna be in me soon."

With practiced calm Mark rolls his body into Anti, one long stroke from collarbone to thigh that gets Anti to let out a reedy whine and aggress Mark's bottom lip with pearly, biting teeth. "You want that?" Mark asks quietly. His hands map the curves of Anti's body--the strength of his arms, the steadiness of his shoulders, the power in his chest, the flexibility in his hips. Everywhere he touches he feels the reality beneath his fingers twinge into the distinguishing trifecta of colours, and glancing at his hands proves that what he's feeling is right--he can't just see the distortion, he can feel it. When he presses into it, shoving with the equivocal distortion he feels in his own skin now that he's paying attention to himself, the colours ripple like the surface of a pond.

Under his hands Anti moans, arching into his touch. "What the hell was that?" he asks foggily, half-gasping, and looks at Mark with lustful eyes. 

"I--I don't know," Mark murmurs. He unbuttons Anti's shirt, easing it out of his way and off his shoulders to follow Mark's to the floor. Bending to kiss at the pale skin on his neck Mark pushes the distortion again with his mouth, nipping at Anti's flesh, and in response Anti mewls and his fingers claw into Mark's shoulders.

"Dark, fuck," Anti sighs unevenly when Mark continually urges little waves through his body, pushes from his fingers and mouth. "Jesus, this--Is this your--Oh, _hell yeah_ , right there." Anti's head tips back and he nearly purrs when Mark's hands ghost across his nipples, idly brushing the flushed skin.

"You ever tried your static during sex?" Mark asks, his voice a low growl. His hips helplessly grind into Anti's, rocking him against the wall in minute bounces.

"Never," Anti replies, and splays a hand on Mark's chest. Like a faucet turning on, heated tingling spreads over Mark's skin with the haste of a wildfire and he groans when it echoes all over his body, concentrated on but not limited to his dick. His eyes flutter shut and he puts some extra effort into grinding his clothed cock against Anti's, chasing the tingling with friction.

"Oh, yeah, that's it, baby," Anti moans, moving into Mark's undulations. "This needs to evolve into a pants-off dance-off. I need your hands on my dick five minutes ago."

Mark huffs out a laugh into Anti's neck, sliding a sweaty palm up his sternum and dragging a pressure along the distortion instead of actually pushing on it. Anti's body curls with the motion, and a drawn-out, high-pitched moan trickles out of his mouth. Anti plants both hands on Mark's chest and gives a little shove, but all it does is give him more reverberating tingles that just make it that much harder to think and stand at the same time. Still, he manages to back up out of Anti's space long enough for both of them to get naked as quickly as possible.

He's still got his foot halfway in a sock when Anti climbs up his body gracefully, legs around Mark's hips, his lips suctioned to the spot where shoulder meets neck and flooding Mark's body with echoing tingles. Mark can't find any reason why he shouldn't, so he presses Anti's lower back into the edge of the countertop and resumes his enthusiastic humping, this time without a stitch between them. Anti's body bows backwards, his mouth coming away from Mark's shoulder with a harsh cry, hips jerking. His cry sharply turns into a breathy moan when Mark smooths both hands up his chest and lingers on his nipples. He spends some time teasing around the little bumps with his fingertips, but when Anti lets out a soft whine and writhes into his touch Mark takes pity on him and pinches, moving the distorted waves coating his pale body at the same time.

Anti arches and screams brokenly, loud enough that Mark thinks he's somehow hurt him. Hurriedly he's grabbing Anti by the arm and checking him over for obvious signs of abuse, but Anti laughs breathlessly and demands, "What the hell are you stoppin' for?"

"Try not to sound like I'm killing you while I get you off," Mark suggests, relieved, and grins wolfishly. "Sends some mixed messages."

Body draped over the counter like the best-looking kind of meal, Anti murmurs with a laugh, "No promises, with those hands of yours." In emphasis he moans loudly as Mark sends the distortion rippling over his whole body. When Mark grasps his cock he exhales windily and keens, bucking up into his fist, swept up in the waves that Mark sends crashing through him.

"God, you look amazing," Mark says, hushed. 

Anti looks up at him and smiles dopily, fingertips singing with electricity wherever they touch along Mark's ribs. "I'd look better ridin' your fingers," Anti tells him, and Mark has to squeeze the base of his own dick to prevent something really embarrassing from happening.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're really good at dirty talk?" Mark wonders, unhooking Anti's legs from his hips. He bends and presses a quick kiss to Anti's smiling lips before dashing to his bedroom, hunting the bottle of lube out of his nightstand and hauling ass back to Anti. Anti, who waits patiently, perched naked on the counter, leaning back on one hand and stroking himself.

Curious, Mark focuses until he can just barely see the shifting lines around Anti's body. The more he seems to focus, though, the harder it is to hang onto the distortion around him. He lets his attention slip and like a fire building, the distortion grows. He studies Anti, lifting a hand, and he nudges at the lines that coast around his body.

Anti gasps out a moan, hand stuttering in its steady strokes as Mark approaches him again slowly, dangerously slow. Anti looks up and sees him coming, and his eyes brighten with desire as they skim over Mark. He parts his legs wide, leaning farther back and planting his heels on the counter edge. Once at his side Mark coats his fingers in lube, sets the bottle down nearby and casually trails his hand up Anti's leg, tickling the sensitive skin.

"Dark," Anti growls, and digs his nails into Mark's bicep hard. The surge of electrified heat that courses through Mark is disastrous to his fracturing control, and it has him gripping Anti's leg for support as his hips make an aborted movement against Anti's thigh. Blue and green stare him down, pleading with him as much as commanding him. "Put that fuckin' hand to work or I will push you down and fuck myself on your dick."

Mark makes a soft noise that he's not very proud of, weak and wanting. He leans over to kiss Anti again, and not just a passing touch of lips--this time he stays, tongue penetrative as he presses Anti into the polished quartz beneath him. As he licks into Anti's mouth he teases a slick finger at his hole before pushing in steadily, wiggling as he goes.

"Oh, fuck," Anti huffs, breaking the kiss to pant against Mark's cheek, their foreheads touching. "Oh-- _oh_ ," he gasps, as Mark gives a few hard thrusts once his finger's in as far as it can go. Mark rubs his fingertip along the silky wall clenching around him, and sends a few teasing waves from his hand to hum through Anti from the inside. "Ah, shit--" His voice hitches up in pitch as Mark lets the waves build, eases in a second finger. "Oh yeah, fuck-- _oh god, Dark, oh_!" 

Anti's hands are both clawed into his biceps, digging hard enough to leave some serious marks and funnelling a sparking myriad of sensations through Mark's limbs that skirts across his lungs and chest and all the way down. The feeling is heady enough to make his vision swim. His dick, sadly neglected, hangs heavy between his legs and throbs in syncopation with each noise or writhe that Anti makes. Having his nails in Mark seems to be grounding Anti, though, as his body continuously crests with the pleasure Mark is ladling into him. He's bucking back onto Mark's hand, half-delirious in the exclamations and semi-formed words he utters. 

When Mark twists his wrist, driving into Anti's receptive body brutally fast, he shoves a bolt of distortion up into Anti in a sharp burst. Anti screams again, his hoarse voice cracking as his back arches up off the counter and he comes untouched, splattering up his chest. 

Mark pumps his fingers into his partner, wringing out his orgasm for every last drop until Anti lies there shaking and begs, "God, please, have mercy, I'm only a man." With satisfaction Mark watches as he twitches and moans with each move of his hand as he pulls out.

It's only a moment before Mark's got a hand around his own dick, gasping hard when the static is suddenly back full-force. He meets Anti's eyes and holds them as he moves his hand over his cock, Anti's static flowing into him like a steady stream of pulsing electricity. It amps him up until he's groaning through his bitten lip with those greedy dichromatic eyes eating him alive.

"Fuck, Dark, you're so fuckin' hot. God, will you come all over me? I want you to. I want you to fuck me raw, too, and tie me up. Would you tie me up and blindfold me, and then fuck me?" Mark's whole body jerks and his harsh gasp is hard to mistake for anything besides severe arousal. 

Distractedly he feels a little nudge as he accidentally pokes Anti's distortion, his mind blearily clouded with Anti and sex and little else, but he doesn't look away from Anti's face. "Oh, fuck," Anti whines with a jolt and a wriggle, fingers tightening on Mark's arms. The static peaks to a raging roar that vibrates through him and Mark feels like he's buzzing out of his skin, like his brain is leaking out of his ears. He speeds up his hand and lets out a hard groan when the buzzing thumps inside him, deep in him where he wants Anti's long fingers to methodically take him apart.

"Gonna come," Mark grinds out. Anti quickly removes a hand from biting crescents into his arm and instead drags his nails hard down Mark's chest, leaving lines of hot, wicked energy that lick spiderwebs over his torso. It slowly spikes through him and then Mark's coming messily over his hand with a keening moan, spurting all over Anti's already messy stomach and groin. 

He's barely stopped spasming when Anti grabs him by the jaw and yanks him down into a desperate, needy kiss, clinging to him feverishly. "Dark," he sighs, nails embedding into the back of Mark's neck. 

Mark rests his sweaty forehead against Anti's and his mouth splits into a wide grin. He lets some of his weight rest on Anti below him, and the Irishman hums in pleasure. 

They lay like that for a little while, absently petting each other and basking in the aftermath. For the sake of the moment Mark refrains from acknowledging the sticky disaster jammed between their stomachs, but when they finally move and their skin is glued together his laugh is even louder than Anti's.

*

Mark gets up a little earlier than usual to clean the kitchen before anyone else wakes up, since he and Anti went to bed right after their little romp on the counter. He chuckles when Anti nearly tumbles out of his room a little after seven, sleepy and catastrophically cute in one of Mark's too-big t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants. 

"Hey, beautiful," Anti yawns. He meanders to Mark and moulds along his back. "Mmm, you look great. Sex with me clearly agrees with you."

"I think sex generally just agrees with me," Mark replies. Anti rains kisses over his left shoulder, then slides a purposeful hand around to his stomach and beneath his waistband. "What are you doing?" Mark muses, turning to see Anti's face half-hidden behind his shoulder.

"Nobody else is home," Anti purrs, kissing a line up the side of his neck. 

Mark chuckles, grabbing Anti's hands and spinning to face him. "While I love the idea of doing nothing but blowing you on the kitchen floor and then fucking you until you can't feel your legs, I've got a few adult things to do today." He makes a small noise of enlightenment, trying to normalize the shard of panic that digs into his heart as he says, "I mean, even though your job is killing people, I bet it's still kind of a day job."

"Well, yeah," Anti murmurs. He eyes Mark. "And, you're okay with that."

"I'm... not _not_ okay with it," Mark replies after a short hesitation, because talking about Anti having killed people in the past and Anti actively going out and killing someone are two very different things. Anti's morose frown makes him add quickly, "Listen, it's not--I'm going to need a little while to adjust. But I can."

Anti sighs, leaning into Mark's chest with his forehead to Mark's shoulder. "How can I expect you to stay with me, when this is what I do?"

Mark shrugs the opposite shoulder as nonchalantly as possible. "I wouldn't be much of a boyfriend if I wanted to change you."

When Anti pulls away to look at him his face is dopey with happiness, grin lopsided and loose, eyes wide. He surges forward and crashes their mouths together, threading his fingers through Mark's mop of hair and shoving him back into the counter. "Jesus, Dark, you ought to have at least a tad more self-preservation than this--"

"Doesn't sound like me," Mark breathes, and pulls him back in. He opens Anti's mouth with slow licks, getting both hands around the back of his neck to direct his face where he wants it. Anti lets him, leans all his weight onto Mark with a blissful little noise and reaches around to scratch lightly at Mark's back. The sensation warms him gently, and Mark feels a vague tingling through his skin wherever Anti's fingers brush. 

He pauses their kiss long enough to murmur, "How late can you be for that whole 'gotta kill a guy' thing?"

In response, Anti takes Mark by the hand and tugs him towards his bedroom with a carnivorous grin. Mark has no problem admitting to himself how weak he is when he goes without a second thought.

*

Once Anti's left and Mark has _thoroughly_ cleaned his bed, he showers and goes to work. Mark doesn't get a hell of a lot done--as he's told by his extremely amused supervisor, who only taps one of his hickeys with a red-painted smirk when he asks what she's smiling at--but he manages to finish a project for a client he'd started earlier in the week and deliver the plans to his boss before he goes home.

Tyler and Ethan are both home when he walks in the door, cuddled up together and watching a movie. Ethan paws around for the remote to pause it as he approaches them. 

"Hey, guys. What're you watching?"

"Where's Andy?" Tyler replies, ignoring his question.

Mark frowns. "His name is Anti."

"What, really? What the hell kind of name is Anti?" Ethan says. "Is that like, a nickname or something?"

"It's what he picked when I asked him his name," Mark explains, and--wow. _That sounds a hell of a lot more ridiculous when I say it out loud_. Feeling the need to remove those skeptically worried looks on both their faces, he continues, "He just--he doesn't like his name. It's a thing."

"Everything is a thing with this guy!" Tyler exclaims, throwing up his hands and getting to his feet. "He actually refuses to tell you his name! Know who does that? Weirdos that wash up from nowhere with a lot of pretty words and charm, then rob you blind and fuck off into the sunset. Or worse, hurt you." Tyler's brow tilts with concern. "You're smarter than this, Mark."

The name, his own goddamn name, makes a sliver of discomfort form in Mark's chest. He ignores it and says, "No, you're overreacting. Anti's not like that. He cares about me."

"What does he do for a living?" Tyler demands. "What's his story? Who is he? Who the fuck is he? Or can you even tell me?"

Mark sighs hard, giving Tyler a grumpy look. "He--"

The front door slams open with a crash, and then a loud bang as it swings hard into the wall. Mark jumps and spins as three guys in civilian clothes with automatic weapons hustle into the apartment. 

Ethan's on his feet as Tyler yells, "Who the hell are you? What--"

One of the men, wearing cargo shorts and a regular windbreaker beneath a combat vest, comes forward and slams the butt of his gun into Tyler's gut. He collapses with a grunt and a wheeze. As Mark opens his mouth to snarl something at him, the guy lifts the gun and aims it point-blank at Ethan, then turns to Mark. "You got something to say?"

Mark grits his teeth together angrily even as fear floods him. "What do you want?" But he's pretty sure he already knows. Two days after he starts seeing a hitman, some guys pay him a house call with M16s? Hardly coincidence.

Cargo Shorts doesn't bother answering him and instead says to his two friends with a nod to Mark, "This one." 

One of them comes forward and Mark is briefly distracted by the bright neon yellow of his tank top, but he's focused again when the guy pulls a pistol from his belt and directs it at Mark's head. He smirks, eyes dark and mean. "You heard him. Let's go." When Mark is defiantly still, the third guy still by the door lifts his gun and fires once into the far wall near the window. 

Mark flinches hard, half-ducking automatically with a sharp cry and he sees Ethan beside him do the same. Neon Yellow says in an unfriendly tone, pistol unwavering, "Let's go, man. You don't want to see what happens after the warning shot."

Mark scowls but he moves forward when Neon Yellow cocks his pistol towards the door. He glances behind him to Ethan, gnawing on the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from talking as Cargo Shorts herds a visibly terrified Ethan and a staggering Tyler at gunpoint into the closet at the end of the hall and locks them inside. 

Trigger-Happy stands outside the door and gives him a deadly look as Neon Yellow and Cargo Shorts escort him outside and directly towards a black SUV parked on the street. 

"Pretty ballsy, parking in broad daylight, walking around with military grade weapons," Mark admonishes in a scolding tone. _I have a death wish,_ he thinks with a healthy serving of fear, panic and hysteria. "I mean, anyone could see you roll up and take me. And firing a shot in a quiet neighbourhood? Everyone within fifty yards just called it in. The police will be here in minutes to figure out what happened. Sloppy work, guys."

"Shut your mouth," Neon Yellow hisses, pressing the muzzle of the gun into Mark's chest and shoving him bodily into the back of the SUV. He follows Mark in and before he can think about getting out the far door and making a run for it, Cargo Shorts opens the door and boxes him in. Trigger-Happy gets in behind the wheel and then they're off with a squeal of tires. 

Mark rolls his eyes. "Oh, do you feel powerful now that you made skid marks? Big tough guy with a fucking Ford Explorer. You probably scare the granny panties off the moms at the PTA meetings, don't you, big boy?" 

He barely sees the gun before Neon Yellow pistol whips him across the face, and Mark turns furious eyes on his kidnapper as his cheek burns. Yellow looks unruffled as he says, "Watch your mouth, dude. You're leverage, and you can still be leverage if you're bleeding. Don't make me put some of my own marks on you." Deliberately Yellow slides the barrel of the gun up Mark's neck, probably touching a hickey. "We clear?"

"Clear that you're a tool?" Mark tries, and gets a good smack across the face with Yellow's gun for it. He glares as his face throbs painfully, hot and smarting. He feels a tickle down his cheek which means Yellow made good on his promise and got him bleeding. "Well, a "no" would have sufficed."

"This is more satisfying," Yellow says simply, and smacks him again. And again.

Mark growls low in his throat at the pain, hunching over and deliberately drooling a glob of bloody spit onto the seat next to him. He turns and grins at Yellow, and as he does he sees his lines shudder with colours for a fraction of a second. His chest is bursting with bitter rage, anger, fear, all overpowered by worry about himself and about Anti. The longer he looks at Yellow the quicker the lines around his body jump, and Mark sees the swing coming so easily, so he just leans back out of the way. 

Yellow cocks his gun and points it at Mark's forehead. "Stop pissing me off, dude, or I swear t--"

"What'cha gonna do, huh?" Mark snarls at him, and presses his forehead to the muzzle of the pistol. "Gonna shoot me?" _I'm insane, what am I doing?_ Mark wonders rabidly. But he feels powerful at the way Yellow wavers, his grip faltering just slightly, and Mark is seizing that moment and following the waves of colour that direct him to driving his fist into Yellow's wrist at the same time as he gets two fingers between Yellow's hand and the gun. He flips the gun upside down and snags it from Yellow's hand when he drops it with a cry of pain, and then he's got it expertly, and ironically, pointed at Trigger-Happy's head through the driver's seat headrest.

"Stop the fucking car," Mark growls, and feels the sudden urge to slam his elbow backwards, so he does. It connects with a satisfying crunch to Cargo Shorts' nose behind him. He ignores the man's howling and demands again, "Stop the fucking car, asswipe!"

Trigger-Happy laughs, though, and continues driving. "Yeah, right, you'll shoot me. You're an engineer."

"I am an engineer," Mark agrees, then pulls back the slide on the pistol and points it at his head again. "And this gun is loaded. Look, we've both said something obvious and rhetorical. Now pull the _fuck_ over."

Trigger-Happy laughs again and Mark bristles with an undignified amount of violent fury. He's squeezing the trigger before he can really consider the reasons why he shouldn't, but before he does he lowers his arm and aims for the driver's shoulder instead.

The vehicle jerks roughly as Trigger-Happy shouts in pain and alarm and clutches his arm, crying out, "Son of a bitch! My fucking arm, you--"

"Fucking pull over!" Mark screams at him. He stops and takes a purposefully calm breath, then leans forward to press the gun right to his ear. "Or... I can turn this up, if you can't hear it. Your choice."

Trigger-Happy is pale and furious, but he finally brakes and pulls over to the side of the road. "Put it in park," Mark snaps, and he does. Mark reaches between the console and quickly yanks the E-brake all the way, then turns to Yellow. "Get out." Yellow doesn't move and Mark rolls his eyes. "Move it, dude, or I'm gonna ketchup your mustard." He waves the gun at his offensively yellow shirt and Yellow frowns.

"I like this shirt," Yellow says petulantly. 

"Then get the motherfuck out so I don't have to paint it red," Mark snaps. Yellow grumbles and does as he's told, climbing out of the back seat and stepping off to the side. Mark quickly hops out and turns the gun on Yellow. "Get back in." He does, and shuts the door. Mark turns and sprints to the back of the vehicle where he crouches, clicking the gun's safety on and tucking it into his waistband. He waits for the SUV doors to open again before darting into moving traffic.

"There, in the street!" Cargo Shorts calls, and Mark is sickly satisfied to hear the nasally grunt in his voice. He definitely broke his nose. 

He doesn't have time to appreciate it, however, because he's now playing life-sized Frogger on a busy street, with three gunmen behind him with what Mark thinks will be little qualm about opening fire on civilians.

He darts ahead, sprinting as fast as he's able while avoiding getting his knees taken out by someone's bumper with a symphony of car horns sounding as he goes. He hears one of the guys shout, "Stop!" before a sound like firecrackers starts behind him, and he hears the impact of bullets hitting the metal of the cars around him. Mark ducks behind the nearest thing, a blue Prius that's stopped in shock like most of the other motorists at the audible gunfire, and breathes for a few seconds before he gets up and runs along the street with his head down.

Mark's brought up short by a big black SUV that cuts across his path and screeches to a stop. _Another one?_ Mark laments, and hurries to get around it. He's halted when four men and one woman pile out of the vehicle in suits, all with a pistol in their hands. One of them, the one nearest him, holds up a badge, flipping it open to show the letters CIA in bold print along with a name that Mark doesn't bother remembering.

"You Mark Fischbach?" one of the men asks, seemingly the oldest of the quintet. The other four now have their eyes down the street, eyes peeled for the gunmen they apparently know are there. 

"Uh," Mark says. He tightens his grip on the gun that he doesn't even remember grabbing from his waistband and gives them all a wary look.

"Put that down, son, we're not here to hurt you," the same man says, tipping up his sunglasses and placing them on top of his greying hair. He lowers his gun but doesn't order the others to. Mark doesn't mind, since they're all aiming down the street in the direction Mark just came from. 

Tentatively Mark tucks the gun back in his pants, lifting his hands to show they're empty. "Okay. Fine." Mark eyes the man, and the other CIA agents. "What do you want with me? Why are those men after me?" Playing dumb seems like the smartest thing to do. He has no idea what the CIA is willing to do to get Anti, including whatever they might do to Mark. _God, where's Anti?_ Mark frets internally, and resists the urge to look around.

The man gives him a sardonic, stern look. "You know why we're here, son. We should talk."

Mark lifts his chin slightly. "Is there a version of this where I can refuse?"

"No." The CIA agent smirks a little. "You seem smart, so let's get this over and done with." 

"So far my day hasn't really encouraged my love for strangers," Mark says idly, but there's some heat there. "So. Why don't you come back and see me tomorrow?"

Two of the younger CIA agents share a look, and then the grey-haired agent says to Mark firmly, with some stoniness, "Listen, Mark." Mark twitches with irritation, glaring now. "I'm not here to fuck around. I'm here for one reason. If you want to stand in between me and that reason, then there isn't a lot I can do for you."

"It's a shame," Mark retorts calmly, "that I have no idea what you're talking about. Really, I wish I could help you guys out."

To Mark's surprise the man smiles, opening the passenger door of the SUV. "Well. There's obviously been some mistake. Let's take you home. I'm sure you won't mind hearing what I have to say on the way."

Mark scowls but he knows a corner when he sees one. He climbs into the SUV and slams the door shut behind himself. He watches the others pile into the SUV and the oldest CIA agent circle the hood and get in behind the wheel.

It takes Mark a minute once they're driving to realize they're not going remotely near his house. "Nice," he says casually. "Unlawful detainment. That's like your forte, isn't it?" The comment is so loaded it may as well be a gun with full ammo.

"I'm not in a particular mood to hear you sass me any longer," the CIA agent says in a mild snarl. "So, you're going to listen and be quiet." He takes a sharp turn and parks along the side of a residential street. He puts the car in park and turns to Mark with a morbidly serious expression, his eyes feral. "The man you think you know is a lie. His real name is Sean McLoughlin, and he's not a good person. He's been a lot of things in the past but they all boil down to the same action. He kills people--a lot of people. He's been with several companies, but primarily he was in the CIA. He lost his mind two years ago, went rogue. My bosses were forced to burn him and set the world loose against him."

Mark folds his arms and stares out the windshield, but the man continues, "Sean is a basic man with basic needs and a primitively basic set of morals. He's not all there anymore, and he's been on the run since he eluded us in St. Petersburg two years ago, and making all kinds of trouble. Wiping out drug syndicates, cleaning out mobs. Every city he visits, the death toll rises." His expression, unhinged with thirst and determination, reminds Mark of a wolf.

CIA Agent Silver Wolf must see that he's not getting through, because he changes tactic. "Every city, he finds someone. Someone gullible and easy to trust." Mark looks over at him sharply, mostly in disbelief. Agent Wolf carries on, "He spends time with them, uses them as a cover, gets the local heat that's interested in him clued in to the fact that he's got a squeeze. The local thugs, like your friends back there who chased you right into our lap, attach to these people, grab them or kill them, doesn't matter. They do it as a kind of gambling piece, to get under McLoughlin's skin and have something he wants. But he doesn't want them. They're tools of escape for him. He knows when he can't contact his person that he's been found, and he tails it out of there and leaves the locals and the CIA scrambling to catch up, and fighting each other while we do it."

"That's a lie," Mark says, but his voice is weak, so weak. 

"Oh, is it?" Agent Wolf muses. "Has he told you he's not actually living in town? That he's in a hotel on the outskirts of the city, indefinitely, or that he's primed to leave at the first moment's notice? Face the facts. You're his first notice, his red flag. You got taken, and he knows. He's long gone by now, Mark."

"You're wrong," Mark gets out, hands clenching. He fumbles for the door handle even though he's probably over a mile from home. The door doesn't budge, anyway, and he leans his forehead against the glass. "You're wrong."

"Jennifer Nguyen, Kyiv," Agent Wolf says, apparently reading from a list. "Caleb Holmes, Amsterdam. Hiroki Takinawa, Tokyo. Dawn Atkinson, Naples. Theodore Drake, Cairo. You get the picture now? He's in this for himself, and himself alone." 

Mark slams his fist into the door, and it hurts like hell but it's a gratifying kind of pain. _Anti wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't, I know he wouldn't. I'm special to him._ "Stop talking. Let me out. I want to go home."

"That's not going to happen," Agent Wolf says, and shifts gears. Mark rolls his forehead against the door and as the car pulls back into the street he sighs in defeat.

A couple blocks later he feels a pulse beneath his fingertips where they're still pressed against the door, steady but fizzling. Mark lifts his head and opens his eyes, and just barely he feels a vibration. He unfocuses his eyes and watches the edges of the car door shimmer with red, grey and blue. Almost like static.

Mark grins. He turns to look over at Agent Wolf. "So, you know everything about him, do you?"

"As much as anyone could know," Agent Wolf agrees. 

"You know about his unique talents?" Mark continues, and now Agent Wolf is very interested in him again.

"I'm more interested in what you know about his talents," Agent Wolf says keenly, eyes narrow and intense. "Tell me what you know."

"I know you should let me go," Mark says, unbuckling his seatbelt pointedly. Agent Wolf looks at it with confusion, and concern. "If you don't, I can't say what might happen to you."

"Don't fuck with me, kid," Agent Wolf snaps, and pulls out his gun from his hip holster to point it at Mark's face. "Put your belt back on."

Mark shrugs and slouches back in his seat, casual as can be. "I'm good. Safer this way."

Agent Wolf takes his hand off the wheel to chamber a bullet and flip the safety off, then points the pistol at Mark again. "I'm not going to ask again."

"Good," Mark says with cheerful relief. "I'd hate to flout you a second time."

Agent Wolf opens his mouth but one of his lackeys in the backseat pipes up, "Sir, we have an incoming--" 

That's all he manages to say before the vehicle is jerking to a stop, everything electronic in the dashboard bursting with sparks and frying instantly. Moments later the front hood dents upwards as something explodes from the engine with a calamitous bang. Mark's already turning to his door and shoving both palms into it, massacring the waves around it and forcing the frame apart with a protesting crunch of metal. The door practically shreds into pieces under his hand as Mark does irreparable damage to the lock, and then he's pushing the mangled door open and stumbling from the SUV. His feet pound the pavement as he picks a direction and runs for all he's worth, ignoring the warnings from the CIA agents behind him to stop, or they'll open fire. Mark hears footsteps behind him and keeps going.

There's another bang behind him, much louder and heavier, and a quick glance over his shoulder shows the fiery, blown-up wreck of the SUV. Three agents including Agent Wolf are chasing something the opposite way down the street while the last two agents are pursuing Mark.

"You know," comes Anti's voice in a holler from nearby, and Mark grins brightly but doesn't slow down, "I thought you were smarter than this, Donovan. Takin' my boyfriend? Unclassy. And just messy for you guys in the long run."

"Freeze!" one of the agents behind Mark yells. He doesn't question how he knows, but he _knows_ they're both lifting their weapons so he diverts in a sharp turn and books it down the side yard of a house, hopping the four-foot fence at the end of the yard and continuing back the way he came down the back lane. While he's running he hears gunfire and flinches, but it's farther away, not at him.

He skids to a stop when Agent Wolf and one of his buddies cut him off at the end of the lane. "Well," Mark says, inching his hand back towards the gun in his jeans, "this is awkward."

Both of them aim at him, and Mark lifts both hands in innocence.

"How'd you get out of the car?" Agent Wolf demands furiously.

"Pixie dust," Mark replies with a pithy grin. "Me and Tinkerbell, we're thick as thieves."

Agent Wolf glares at him and Mark's ducking and rolling away without conscious thought, and it's good that he did because Agent Wolf shoots at him--rather, at where he was. He doesn't stop, hops another fence and cuts back into the street, passing the flaming wreck of the SUV before running to a house with tall hedges in the front yard. He crouches and goes still, catching his breath and willing his heart to slow down. When he shifts Mark feels a sting on his arm and absently touches it but quickly recoils at the jolt of pain. He turns his arm and peers at the wound, a straight horizontal line across his bicep, gouging into the skin uniformly. 

_He grazed me_ , Mark thinks, and imagines what Agent Wolf's face would have looked like when he saw Mark dodge actual bullets. Absently he adds getting a tetanus shot to his list of things to do after this.

"Hands up." Mark's head whips around. The female CIA agent is at the end of the hedge, a smear of blood across her forehead and her left arm bloodied and rendered useless by a gunshot wound to her shoulder. She has her gun pointed right at him. Slowly Mark stands, hands hovering at his sides. The agent backs up a step and says shakily, "Hands up, or I'll shoot."

She's afraid of him, obviously, and the way she's eyeing his hands clues him in that she probably saw his Houdini trick to get out of the car. Mark is edging towards his hidden gun at his back when she fires and the bullet just barely misses his head. The shock on her face tells him it was a misfire, and he's barely had the idea before he's following the divots of colour in the lines on the ground and rushing forward in a low crouch, coming up and knocking the gun out of her hands. He slams his palm flat into her chest and she flies backwards in a low arc, landing in the hedge at the other end of the yard with a femininely high grunt. Mark stares at her and then his hands, perfectly normal-looking and not strong enough to send a grown woman flying, then forces himself to move, scrambling to pick up her gun and click the safety on before tucking it into his waistband and bolting from the yard.

He hides behind a car parked up the street and breathes slowly to ease his trembling. _Anti, where are you?_

A shot rings out here and there as Mark waits, then there's three rapid shots, and then nothing. The street's been quiet for a few minutes when Mark pokes his head up over the trunk of the car. He stands warily and starts creeping down the sidewalk in a half-crouch. As he's walking a black SUV--of fucking course--screams onto the street, taking the corner on two wheels and heading right for him. 

"For fuck sake," Mark groans, and sprints into a yard. On his way to the backyard he's caught around the elbow by a strong hand and the only thing that stops him from shrieking is the buzzing he feels at the touch, the familiarity that immediately sweeps through him. He goes along when the hand tugs him into a porch off the side of the house he's running past, and then Anti is enveloping him in a bruising hug.

"Oh, god, are you okay?" Anti says in a rush as he pulls back. He's wearing his red clown nose and his hands are everywhere, skimming over Mark's chest and back, his ribs, pressing and testing for broken bones and sprains. "I heard the shot, and I didn't know where the girl went--You're okay? Did Donovan get you in the alley? Fuck, look at your face--Who did this?" He grips Mark's arm as he inspects his face and Mark lets out a pathetic whine when he squeezes his wound. Anti's hand jerks back and grabs him at the wrist and shoulder to inspect it. "This was Donovan?" 

"Yes," Mark says, drinking in the sight of him in an off-white henley and navy blue vest with shoulder holsters. He's got a bloody scrape up one arm and his lip is cut, but he looks okay. "At the alley. The guys before hit my face, I don't know who they were." He slides his hands over Anti's ears and brings his face close enough to kiss.

Anti moans into his mouth when their lips meet and his hands grasp needily in Mark's hair. Mark takes his weight and sags back against the door behind him, grabbing his ass and lifting him up into the hungry curve of Mark's body. Quickly Anti becomes insatiable, fingers tugging at Mark's clothes as he bites and kisses in equal measure. Mark matches him move for move but stills his hands when they go to pull his shirt off.

"Anti, we're in the middle of a gunfight with the CIA, and also with who I assume are the guys from earlier." His sigh ghosts over Anti's lips when he clamps his hands around Mark's neck and ravenously kisses him, until Mark is wagering the merits of having sex as fast and quietly as possible while people roam the neighbourhood with guns, eager to kill them. "Mmm, Anti," Mark tries when Anti is blazing his own warpath over Mark's neck. "Not now, we can't--god damn, you're ridiculous--"

"Okay," Anti says with conviction, and then continues to kiss the daylights out of him. "Okay," he says again, drawing back and stooping to pick up where his clown nose fell when they were kissing. He seizes Mark's hand with a silly smile and spends a few seconds just looking at Mark, and Mark takes the chance to do the same. Then Anti is replacing his red nose onto his face and tugging him along. "Come on, this way." He opens the back door into the house, slipping a handgun from one of his holsters and raising it as he creeps into the house, through the kitchen and into the hallway, heading for the front door. 

They don't run into anyone on their way, and then they're emptying onto the street. Both of them drop down into a crouch when someone shouts, "Over there!" and the house they just exited is promptly sprayed with bullets from four different sources. 

Anti shoves him down into the dirt, hidden by shrubs, and bounds away without a word. Mark ignores the common sense section of his brain telling him to stay where he is, down and out of sight, and follows. 

He's about ten yards behind Anti when someone snags him around the neck from behind. Mark cries out when the hand instantly clutches his throat and squeezes hard. The man holding him starts dragging him backwards as Anti spins, gun raised.

"This yours?" Mark's captor calls, and Mark tries to plant his elbow into the guy's solar plexus when he recognizes the voice as Neon Yellow. The gunman avoids his elbow and keeps hauling him back. 

"Let him go," Anti calls. The colours surrounding him start sparking with activity, and Mark swings again, one hand clawing at the grip over his throat. "I don't wanna kill you in front of him. Don't make me."

Mark growls when the hand tightens, significantly. "I think I'll keep him, actually," Yellow croons, and rubs his cheek against Mark's, his head over Mark's shoulder. Pressing the cold muzzle of his gun to Mark's opposing temple, he adds, "He seems like fun." He turns to brush his lips against Mark's face, grinning and showing three gold teeth Mark hadn't noticed before. Mark recoils at the too-casual touch and starts wriggling. "You seem like a lot of fun."

"I'll show you fucking fun if you keep touching me, dude," Mark threatens, but it rings a little empty since he can't free himself. The gun's presence prevents him from trying to use his whatever-it-is power; it's a stark reminder that if his new friend so much as twitches he could be done for.

"Last warnin'," Anti says, eyes tracking all over Mark before fixating on the man behind him.

Neon Yellow just laughs and tugs Mark into the street, towards the black SUV he rolled up in with his two buddies. "You got bigger problems, man." As he speaks, all five CIA agents and both his accomplices appear from various directions, weapons up.

"Hands up, Sean," Agent Donovan hollers, advancing slowly. "It's over."

Anti sighs, posture abruptly relaxing, and he waves his hand around in a meandering gesture. He looks around, counting out loud as he points at each adversary. "Oh, dear. Eight guys--and girl," he adds with a jaunty little wink at the female agent, who scowls and lifts her weapon higher with her good hand, "and only one me. Not lookin' good for me. I wonder, how's this gonna play out?"

Cargo Shorts and one of the male agents seem to notice their proximity to each other and swing their weapons around. Mark snorts despite himself when they can't seem to decide who's a bigger threat, Anti or each other, and digs his heels in and deadweights his body to slow Neon Yellow down. He staggers under Mark's sudden extra weight, hands faltering, and Mark rolls into his grip, slamming both hands up and catching him under the jaw and against his gun, sending it soaring through the air. Yellow staggers back and has one brief second to register the fury on Mark's face before Mark brings up his foot and uses his whole body--and maybe just a little oomph of darkness--to slam it into Neon Yellow's upper thigh. Gunshots start up around him as Yellow collapses awkwardly with a scream of agony, and Mark thinks he might have dislocated his hip judging by the angle of his leg. He's not even marginally sorry.

Anti shouts, "Get down, Dark!" and Mark is on his stomach crawling towards him in a heartbeat. Bullets zoom overhead and Anti's returning fire, twirling and spinning, ducking and leaping in and out of cover as he avoids the shots fired at him. Satisfyingly Mark hears the wet, dying grunt of one of the agents as Anti catches him with a bullet.

A hand shackles around his ankle and Mark doesn't think, just kicks out hard with both feet as he rolls onto his back and grabs for one of the guns at his waist. He's got the gun cocked, safety off, at the same time that Cargo Shorts lunges up his body, face bloodied from his busted nose, and shoves the barrel of his gun right into Mark's parted mouth.

"Save it," Cargo Shorts says waspishly at Mark's vicious noise, but Mark sees the fear in his eyes.

_He's scared of me_ , Mark realizes with prideful glee. _And he should be_. He sits up slowly when Cargo Shorts grabs him by the shirt and hauls him into a sitting position.

"Dark!" Anti shouts hoarsely, nearby, but Mark doesn't try to turn and look. He bores his eyes into Cargo Shorts', daring him, challenging him to do something even as he has a loaded weapon literally in his mouth. After a tense moment Cargo Shorts hauls him up and spins him, instead pointing his gun right to the back of Mark's head.

"Move it," Cargo Shorts snarls, and hustles Mark quickly up the street to the SUV. "And don't try anything, or I won't fucking hesitate to shoot you."

Mark's lip curls with disgust and he looks over his shoulder to glare at him. "You see what I did to your buddy there? What makes you think I won't do the same to you?"

Cargo Shorts pales, his tan complexion waning, but he still grits out, "You got lucky. Let's go. Rodrigo!" he hollers at Trigger-Happy, who's perched behind a red sedan and firing almost excitedly into the fray between the CIA and Anti.

Trigger-Happy hurries over and climbs into the driver's seat of the SUV, and Cargo Shorts gets into the back with Mark. "To the house?"

"Go," Cargo Shorts replies briskly. "Before the psycho can catch up." Then he turns an insidious look on Mark, eyeing him as the vehicle roars to life and the firefight recedes behind them. Without warning he swings and hits Mark hard with his gun, and all the lights go out.

*

Waking up with his wrists duct taped to a chair and his own blood trickling down his face isn't exactly how Mark likes to start the day, but since it's the middle of the afternoon he doesn't think this really counts.

His groan alerts his captors, Cargo Shorts and Rodrigo the Gun Happy Moron, to his consciousness. There's duct tape across his mouth so he can't even sass them when they give him identical looks of sinister excitement. 

"Hey, good morning, princess," Cargo Shorts says delightedly. "You're looking a little worse for wear. How's your head? Hurts, doesn't it? Probably got a concussion." He makes a _tsk_ noise, then splits his lips in a bloodthirsty smile. "You should be more careful."

Mark rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and groans again, this time in aggravated dismay. Even when kidnapped, he's not about to put up with this kind of useless scare tactic. He rolls his shoulders, testing his bonds to the chair--they're pretty snug, he'll need help or a chance to use his odd spatially manipulative power to get out of them--and looks away disinterestedly.

Cargo Shorts comes forward and grabs his face, snapping his gaze back to him. He bends down into Mark's space. "Oh, am I boring you? Well, I'm sorry about that. So few things to do around here. Sometimes we have to make our own fun."

Huffing with amusement Mark tells him to go fuck himself, but his gag muffles it into a useless fumble of grunts. 

"Oh, you got something to say," Cargo Shorts says, turning to Rodrigo. "He's got something to say." He faces Mark again and backhands him viciously, bending down again to his level as Mark growls behind the tape. "Still got something to say, man?"

Mark stares at him until red and blue waves swim around everything in the room, anger pushing out everything else except how badly he needs to rip this guy apart. He snarls out a promise of death and his gag turns it into meaningless noise.

"Well," Cargo Shorts says, standing upright and shifting his M16's strap across his shoulder, "here's what's going to happen. When your guy shows up, if the CIA hasn't perforated him like Swiss cheese, we're going to kill him." He turns to look at Mark and gauge his reaction, but Mark just keeps glaring him down. "We're going to kill him, and then we're going to collect his extremely generous bounty. Then, we're going to slit your throat and dump you into a ditch somewhere to rot. Maybe we'll even dump him next to you, and you can have a little dirt nap together."

He can't help it--Mark laughs. He laughs and laughs, and laughs some more when Cargo Shorts looks like he just sucked on a lemon. Rodrigo levels his rifle at Mark and he laughs even harder. Cargo Shorts grabs a corner of the tape on his mouth and rips it off Mark's face and then smacks him across the face again, but Mark just keeps laughing.

"What's so funny, bro?" Cargo Shorts asks, and grabs Mark by the hair, pulling hard enough that he gasps and cuts off his laughter. "Something funny? Why don't you share it with us?"

Mark grins, tasting copper. "You're fucking dead," Mark tells them simply, chuckling, and leans to spit a mouthful of red onto the floor. "You may as well call the funeral home and get your spots reserved, pick out a headstone. Because when he gets here, he will fucking kill you." He grins wider when Cargo Shorts makes an irritated sound and smacks him, but he sees his unease at Mark's obvious insanity when the hit does nothing but encourage his giggling. "And if he doesn't?" Mark leans forward as far as he can, then whispers, "If he doesn't, then I will."

"Tough guy, taped to a chair and handing out death threats," Rodrigo laughs. Then they both freeze as rapid gunfire can be heard outside, pretty close by.

"Looks like my ride's here," Mark says. Rodrigo turns with a rough, angry noise and swings his rifle at Mark's face. Mark sees the red stretching out to him, the grey smoothing along the length of the gun, the blue showing its trajectory. Mark throws himself sideways and yanks his hands up, snapping the tape at his wrists with a swipe of energy and avoiding the arc of the rifle. He lands on his knees and grabs the arm of the chair before it hits the floor, bringing it around with a roar and throwing it hard at Rodrigo. The chair collides with him, a harsh smacking sound highlighting the strike, and both chair and gunman fall to the floor, unmoving. 

Cargo Shorts has his rifle pointed at Mark's head, but it doesn't stop Mark from getting to his feet and stalking across the room towards him. "Stop!" Cargo Shorts yells, and Mark hears the desperation in it. He feels the wriggle of the colours around him when Cargo Shorts pulls the trigger, rolls quickly to the side and brings his hand down onto the barrel of the gun as he spins to face his kidnapper again. He twirls the gun around, tangling the strap, and with a tug he brings Cargo Shorts close enough so Mark's face is inches from his white, horrified one.

"Hey, man--Mark, your name's Mark, right?" Cargo Shorts babbles, flinching when Mark grabs a handful of his shirt and drives him back a step. "Hey, listen--no big deal, man, just go with your boyfriend, it's cool, we're cool, right? Mark, man, we're cool. Right, Mark?"

"Actually," Mark says, irritation radiating over his skin at the name, over and over. He slides his hand up the side of Cargo's neck, then back into his hair where he pulls hard and locks eyes with him. Something _true_ swells in him as the words flow off his tongue. "Actually, it's Dark."

Cargo Shorts has a brief second of panic before Dark is letting him go and wrenching the rifle off of its strap, severing it with a jerky slash along the distortion line and turning the rifle on him. He squeezes the trigger and feels _effervescent_ at the way Cargo Shorts staggers back, his chest and stomach spotted with little dots of red that quickly bloom to cover most of his torso. He falls back into the wall and slides down it, leaving a linear smear of red. Dark stands over him and watches him bleed out until the light's gone from his eyes. 

"I told you that would happen," Dark says mildly, and fires an extra shot into his corpse. He pauses then, and waits for the horror to come over him, the shock to set in as he looks at the person he killed. He doesn't feel anything, especially no remorse over taking Cargo Shorts'--he doesn't even know the guy's name--young and promising life. He frowns a little when he thinks about if Cargo Shorts had any pets, though.

He takes a moment to check himself over and make sure he wasn't shot--although he's pretty wobbly on his feet with his concussion, so even if he's not shot he's still not out of the woods. Dark spares a glance at Rodrigo, still unconscious and in a heap with the chair, on his way out of the room.

There's six guys downstairs, warily looking out the windows with their backs to him, looking for something as Dark exits silently onto the upstairs landing. He hefts the gun up to rest on the inside of his shoulder, looking down over the railing at the sight as he inhales and prepares to sneak past them when a cheery whistle comes from outside. All at once the men are firing willy-nilly at the front of the house. Dark stands back and smiles, leaning on the railing with the gun hanging from his hand, peering down at them as they do nothing but waste ammo.

Anti jump-rolls through a window on the side of the house, glass shards crashing around him as he tumbles and springs to his feet. He efficiently dispatches everyone in the room with a bullet apiece, laughing his high and deranged laugh. He whirls his revolver around his finger and holsters it as he looks around.

"Hey, baby," Dark calls down with a jovial little wave, and Anti looks up at him with a bright smile.

"Hey, Darks. You look like the Juliet to my Romeo," Anti replies, turning and coming up the stairs.

Dark smiles wryly. "Well, bodies are dropping like flies, all over two people who're in love. Sounds like Montagues and Capulets to me." He hums happily when Anti presses him back into the railing and kisses him hard enough to make him worry about its structural integrity. "Thanks for coming to get me. I missed you."

Anti pulls back and strokes his hand over Dark's face, studying him intently. Dark winces a little at the touch, though, and Anti's tender smile folds into a nasty scowl. "You're bleeding, and--Someone hit you, Jesus." The brilliance in his eyes is manically dangerous. "Where is he?"

"Back there," Dark says, waving vaguely to the hall behind Anti. "But I got him. I shot him with his own gun." He giggles a little, holding a hand to his head when it throbs painfully, everything shifting slightly with colours on their edges. "I shot him like, eleven times."

Anti cradles his face gently. "You're a little concussed, huh, Darko?" 

Dark nods in his hands and smiles, rubbing his palms up Anti's sides. "C'mon, Romeo, let's blow his popsicle stand." Anti's face is indulgently fond as he slings his arm behind Dark's back and helps him walk down the stairs, his arm over Anti's shoulders. They both lean on each other, Anti from exhaustion and Dark from delirium. 

At the bottom Dark plants a bloody smear of a kiss on Anti's jaw and steps out of his arms with a small smile, and they walk to the hole-riddled front door. "Thanks. That would've been really embarrassing if I tried to do that alone." 

Anti nods at him and grins, then kicks the door and it slams outward, clearing their way. He goes first, his handgun raised as they walk out onto the large porch and then to the long, gated driveway. Anti's car is parked at the far end by the gate, which has been fried if the smoke rising from it is any indication. 

Dark is about to ask where they can go when several voices say "Freeze!" and it's like CIA agents come out of the fucking woodwork to surround them. There's over a dozen of them now. _These fucking assholes_ , Dark growls internally. He turns his back to Anti then lifts his gun to prop it against his shoulder and look down the sight at the nearest agent. He flicks the safety off with his thumb and rests his finger loosely at the trigger guard, shifting until he has Anti behind him.

Gratefully Dark feels the heat of Anti's back along his, just a bare breath of space between them but it may as well not be there. He's as rigid as Dark, and a quick glance over his shoulder shows him that Agent Donovan is standing in front of him and aiming his pistol at Anti, who returns the favour with two guns in Donovan's face.

"You're out of escape routes," Donovan says. He's probably trying to sound understanding but Dark just hears the smarminess in his voice, and he wants to rip it out of his chest and crush it in his hand. Never mind that smarminess isn't like, an organ or something that can legitimately be ripped out. It's the principle of the thing.

"I'm physically incapable of havin' no escape routes," Anti replies, and Dark actually feels the sudden buzzing coming off his skin, like standing in front of a defective microwave. It's a vibrating tingle through his flesh, making bumps rise on his skin and chills crawl up his spine, and Mark shivers hard enough that his hands shake. Anti leans one shoulder into the middle of Dark's back, and then he's gone in a blink, disappearing completely from sight.

Donovan gapes, his face pale as he tries to fathom what he just saw. He can't seem to logic it out, so he aims at Dark and demands furiously, "Where'd he go?" To his agents he says, "Fan out! Find him!" The agents scatter over the property, some heading inside and some spreading over the yard. "The file said he was inhumanly fast, not that he could fucking disappear," Donovan says to himself, horrified and confused. When Dark shrugs and lifts his gun again to point it at Donovan, the agent seethes. "Where is he?!"

"Hey, man, how should I know?" Dark muses, smirking. "I'm just a ho-in-passing, remember? He wouldn't tell me anything important, or show me anything worthwhile. There's no way that could happen. You told me yourself."

Donovan's lip curls with rage. "Tell me where he is," he fumes, deathly quiet, "or I'm going to tie you with so many criminal charges that you'll suffocate in them, and then I'll put you in a small, dark little hole in the middle of a fucking desert for the rest of your natural life."

Dark sighs, humming pensively as if considering the offer. He straightens up and lowers his gun, swinging it to his side, his posture leisurely. "Well, that's a pretty complicated choice. I might need something in writing. This seems legit, you know?"

"Quit fucking around," Donovan snarls. He steps closer to Dark and demands, "Where did he go?!"

Gunfire sounds from inside the house, along with a considerable racket of things crashing around. Donovan yells, "Inside, he's inside the house!" and every agent in sight rushes to the house and creeps inside. Dark's breath seizes for a few seconds as they search the building. Moments later they're all filing out again, though, weapons lowered and making their way to Donovan.

"The house is empty, sir," an agent tells him.

Dark grins when Donovan whirls on him. "Tough break, man. He's slippery, huh?" Donovan opens his mouth to continue but now Dark is close enough to lift his rifle in one smooth move and press the muzzle right to his throat. Every agent around him lifts their gun and aims at his head but Dark ignores them and gives Donovan a dead stare. "I'm not attached to you, Agent Donovan. In fact you've kind of been a huge pain in my ass. And you're after my boyfriend, which isn't super smart. I'm the jealous type so that's not going to work out for you. So, I'm giving you ten seconds to reevaluate your position, and then I'm deciding for you."

Donovan glares at him, his mouth flattening to a thin, tempestuous line. Dark counts in his head and he's just hit nine and is curling his index around the trigger when Donovan snaps, "Fine, alright. Fuck." He sighs, though it sounds more like a growl. "Everyone back off," he snarls to his agents, and they slowly lower their weapons one by one. 

One look at Donovan's mutinous face and Dark knows he's never getting anything but the hard side of this man. He's got the upper hand right now, and if he wants to keep himself and Anti safe then certain things have to happen if people refuse to listen.

"Outstanding," Dark says pleasantly, and pulls the trigger. Blood splatters from Donovan's neck--he must have hit the carotid artery--and onto his face as the bullets rip through his flesh and bone, one after the other. Donovan starts to collapse as he dies where he stands and Dark steps back, swinging around to the closest agent, his face stony as he aims at them, rifle stock to his shoulder. 

The standoff between Dark and the agents only lasts for a few seconds, and then he feels a tingle up his arm like an electric shock. He's following his instict, diving to the side and rolling, half-crawling and half-bouncing to his feet as he evades the CIA agents and distracts them. Most of them turn to look at him but only one shoots at him, and he's quickly dispatched by Anti as he zaps into reality again, sliding across the gravel of the driveway in between the agents. He shoots the agent that shot at Dark first and then two more through the head before he jumps up onto his feet. As he bolts away his image shutters twice before disappearing altogether. 

Dark creeps around the car he's hiding behind to the hood while the agents scramble like chickens. He points his gun forward as he rounds the car, waiting for the tell-tale tingle up his arm. When it zings through his forearm he sprints out of cover and fires a short burst of bullets into the sparse crowd of remaining agents. He sees someone drop but doesn't slow down until he's behind cover again, closer this time.

Popping his head out, Dark sees Anti blip back in right in the middle of the agents' little herd and embed a knife into the back of the agent he's closest to. The guy collapses with a final cry of pain, and Anti's rushing the last two agents, shoving one back and over one of his colleagues' corpses, tripping him up and sending him onto his ass. Dark hurries over and aims his gun down at the upended agent while Anti avoids a swing from the last agent. Anti moves with the agent when he tries to restrain Anti in a hold, and Anti gets his hands around the man's head and slams his face down onto his knee, dropping him to the ground before pulling his revolver out of its holster and putting a bullet in his skull. 

As Anti walks up Dark puts his foot over the downed agent's throat, cutting off his begging, and aims the rifle at his face. Anti slips an arm around his waist and Dark shoots the man, tossing the gun down onto his lifeless body before turning and wrapping Anti up in a big hug. 

Dark waits again for the reality to hit him, that he's now killed four people, three of them quite brutally too. He's not nervous, or anxious, or horrified at his actions as he holds Anti in his arms. It feels good, if anything, to be where he is right now. Long fingers curl into fists in the fabric of his shirt on his back, and Dark pulls back to look at his boyfriend. "What is it?"

Anti sighs ruefully, laughing and wiping his hand across one of Dark's cheeks. It comes away bright red. "You're totally covered in blood, you just slaughtered like three guys, and the only thing I wanna do is kiss your stupid face."

"Really?" Dark says with mock surprise, and brings Anti in close with a hand on his neck. He's sporadically coated with patches of blood, too, making his complaining about Dark's bloodiness moot. Anti has a cut over his eye that's bleeding into one of his thick eyebrows and his knuckles are scraped up to a painful-looking degree, but he grins at Dark like he's stargazing, eyes wide and kindled with joy, his mouth a happy crescent. His whole image is about three times as endearing because of the red clown nose adorning his face, and he's so adorable Dark doesn't think he could put it into words. "Well, it's mutual, you know."

Dark leans in at the same time as Anti and their mouths come together in a harmonious clash. He holds on to the warmth in his arms like a life preserver. With relish Dark tastes blood and static and _Anti_ , and it feels right. Slowly a sensation seeps through his chest like the ecstatic swell that he gets when he's just finished a really good book, but when Dark pulls back and looks into Anti's face, smoothing his chartreuse hair back from his eyes, all he sees is a beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> and then Tyler and Ethan died in the closet, the end


End file.
